People’s Pub Partnership (Pt. 2) | Micro UX
April 28 - June 16 (7 Weeks)
Brief: Design a way to materialise the community governance model of pub ownership
Group Members: Ava, Ella (Me), Effy, Fangxue, Jacob, Kristen, Parth, Ranga and Zhe
Week 2 (5th May - 11th May)
Gathering all of our research and probes so far, we synthesised the information into a short initial presentation to show to our tutors and peers. It detailed our definitions of pub governance models and the history of pubs as well as our potential research methods moving forwards. It also looked at last week’s pub crawl and AEIOU findings, pointing out differences and similarities in the pubs visited. We also handed out and discussed our coasters, focusing on each of the different designs being a representation of each individual user’s personality.
The feedback from our tutors and peers was positive, they noticed that we had done a lot of research and had quickly become invested in the brief’s topic. It was mentioned that we focused on how pubs were currently designed, noting interior styles and what types of people used the spaces, but we did not explore the less immediate components of a pub — ‘What actually makes a pub? By removing the walls/shell, how would it still be a pub?’. Taking this thought with us into a tutorial with Alaistair, we spoke about using probes as a conversation starter and materialising specific aspects of a pub in order to produce reactions. How could we manifest a pub outside of a pub? Are there ways of determining how pubs can be represented without being tied to a specific brand or location?
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After our tutorial, we spoke again with Mark regarding the Walworth Community Pub group who had been kind enough to invite us to their upcoming stakeholder meeting on the 12th of May. As it would be a small event, only two of our group would be able to attend alongside Mark, so after much discussion it was decided that Jacob and I would go to this meeting and report back to the rest of the group afterwards. To make sure that we fully understood what the Walworth Community Pub group were doing and whether our project would coincide with their own, we decided to get in contact with one of their leaders Matt Meynell.
In a phone call with Matt, Jacob asked about the community effort the Walworth Community Pub group was conducting and what their vision of a new community pub in the area would be. He also discussed ideas about what governance models they would be implementing and whether there would be the possibility of a collaboration of sorts between our two groups. Due to the early timeframe of the Walworth Community Pub project, they were unsure about governance aspect but were eager for us to attend their upcoming meeting to discuss aspects of community socialisation and engagement with us. We determined that attending their meeting next week could provide crucial information for our project as well as give us a foundation for narrowing down our concept based on real issues/topics being tackled in the surrounding area.
When meeting as a group later in the week we talked about our current research, our feedback and our upcoming correspondences. Based on our current collection of information, we decided to make a detailed list of what the key aspects of a pub were in order to formulate some ideas about the final event space and the materialisation of outcomes. We focused on the layout of the space and how people use the pub as a means of socialisation. We also looked at how to facilitate conversations and create an environment which had no boundaries and was open to everyone.
Utilising these newly refined ideas regrading curated spaces, socialisation and community we produced a series of new probes and models. These included a new written prompt regarding sharing music suggestions with people, a new table attachment using icons to prompt conversation, a 3D floor model for a capsule style pub and the creation of a pub without boundaries.
The written prompt and the table attachments were based around our previous findings about community socialisation and were designed to increase conversation between separate groups of people. The floor plan model stemmed from our AEIOU observations, it looked to create an environment that met the needs of all users whether they were individuals or groups or whether they prefer quiet or loud places. Our main focus though was on developing the pub without boundaries, we looked to materialise our previous presentation feedback and get people involved in experiencing a pub atmosphere outside of the psychical pub space.
