LCD Weekly Issue - 034 - Nonhuman Persona in the Park!
⛰️ Words from the mountains
Did you miss us last week? The flu swept our whole family for almost two weeks, so we didn't publish a weekly last week, but we are back.
Before the viruses hit us, I visited the UK to give workshops in the Park and connect with some brilliant minds at the RCA and Imperial College. We often get the question: "How do you apply Life-Centered Design in the city? Because cities lack nature." Our answer is: "There is nature everywhere; you have to be open to looking for it in the city." In cities, we are so occupied with life and information overload that people don't stop and look around.
To allow designers in the cities to experience Life-Centered Design, we developed a Nonhuman Persona Workshop in the Park. After a successful first workshop in the Park last June in Amsterdam, we teamed up with Cecilia Brenner from Design for Good to host a second event in the beautiful Regent's Park in London on October 16.
It was great to welcome over twenty passionate designers and creatives and connect with nature in the park. We gave voices to the wind, willows, mycelium, and soil in the Regent's Park.
The next day, I went to Bristol to give soil a voice in the Soil Association. Again, we went to a park, but today, we focused on the soil in the park. Chloe Smee and I got a fund from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as part of the Collective Imagination Practice Community. With the fund, we are exploring ways to give soil a stronger voice in the Soil Association through storytelling and life-centered design.
I would like to share some insights about these two amazing park days.
It is excellent to build the Life-Centered Design School in our remote village, but I love real-life sessions with other humans.
Bringing design outside is where the real magic happens. In this era, where we shortcut everything with the use of AI, it becomes increasingly important for designers to make a difference and take their design work away from our laptops and into the real world.
The stories of species and habitats participants develop in just 1.5 hours are impressive. If you give people a few days to create a persona, they will blow your mind.
Participants are surprised to learn so much about a species in such a short time.
One change in our guide made all the difference. In our previous iteration, we asked people to draw their human persona, and then they made one drawing. Now, we ask them to make a small Visual Journal instead. Participants will observe their persona more closely and get more in-depth visual results.
Where is the following Nonhuman Persona in the Park? I cannot travel worldwide to facilitate workshops in the park. We have been working on a facilitator guide for others to host Nonhuman Personas in the Park. Please reach out if your city has a vibrant design community and you want to host a Nonhuman Persona Workshop.
🐅 LCD in the Wild - My Nature Watch
During my trip to London, I visited Dr. Robert Phillips at the Royal College of Arts, and he talked to me about the citizen science project around the DIY wildlife camera project. Typically, a wildlife camera easily costs 200 euros, but with Robert's My Nature Watch project, you can make one for around 50 euros using a Raspberry PI. On the Mynaturewatch website, you will find the building instructions and instructions on where to buy the parts. You can share your experiences on a forum on the website.
I love this project because it brings together what I really like. I love making things; it allows me to explore nature differently and learn from it. It has a community behind it, and it is something I can do with my kids.
🪄 Inspiration- Ecological Citizens Network
The Ecological Citizen(s) Network+ is a four-year research network based at the Royal College of Art in collaboration with Wrexham University and the Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York. Its mission is to catalyse, amplify, and enable Ecological Citizenship in a sustainable digital society for positive climate action.
The urgency of the climate and ecological crises serve as constant reminders about the importance of sharing and learning from others (human and nonhuman) and the wider natural world. Through our work, we want to explore (and develop) ways real people can turn ideas into real action to foster ecological awareness and sustainable practices within their communities and environments.
https://ecologicalcitizens.co.uk/
🔥 Hot in the School - Course and Guide
Exciting news! Our waiting list is officially open!
Join us for our sixth cohort launching this spring!
By signing up, you'll be the first to receive important updates. Plus, we'll keep you in the loop with biweekly LCD information and invite you to two exclusive webinars just for waiting list members. Don't miss out on the chance to connect with others in our vibrant WhatsApp community!
With life-centered design, immersion, observation & conversation are crucial to establishing relationships with our natural environment and communities. We wish you more time for your design work with the Guide (pdf), which includes the following:
14 exercises to help you be more intentional with your design work
Access the LCD School Whatsapp Community for inspiration, connection, conversations, events and more!
A non-human persona framework
And ecosystem mindmap, which you can use to start a project in Miro or Mural.
The Life-Centered Design Guide to Slow Down is an online PDF.
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That is all for this week!
See you next Monday!
Jeroen
