MEANING CREATION THROUGH A COMMUNITY-

CENTERED DESIGN APPROACH

WonJoon Chung
School of Industrial Design, Carleton University
[email protected]

1. INTRODUCTION
The proposed project was the nine-week long assignment as a part of studio projects to be completed by the third
year industrial design students at Carleton University in the winter of 2011. In this project, students were asked to
develop innovative design concepts and ideas guided by the community to transform the factory town, called
Batawa, into a model community for sustainability and design. As a further extension of the initial collaboration
between Batawa Development Center (BDC) and Carleton University, the students were asked to collaboratively
work with the community and create innovative design concepts that could make the town a more meaningful
place for people in the community and inviting place for visitors.
The town of Batawa is located in the municipality of Quinte West, between Belleville and Cobourg in
Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1939, when Thomas J. Bata, the son of Bata Shoe Company founder
Tomas Bata, moved to Canada to build a factory town. The expansion of the international company was an
exciting new venture for Thomas J. Bata, his family and employees. The Bata Shoe Company is one of the
world’s leading footwear retailers and manufacturers that operate in over 55 countries with 5000 retail stores.
However, the Batawa factory in Ontario ceased operation in 1999, when Mrs. Sonja Bata, widow of Thomas J.
Bata, bought the land in order to redevelop the town. Along with being an active part of the Bata Shoe Company,
Mrs. Bata is also the founder and chairman of the Batawa Development Corporation (BDC), which plans to bring
to life her dreams of having a thriving sustainable community in Batawa. While building on the town’s strong
history and community spirit, Mrs. Bata and the BDC plan to introduce sustainable practices into the area to
create a richer lifestyle.
By employing the framework proposed for this project, ““a context as a system, a product as a component
and the relationship between them as a meaning”, students tried to see a product they would be designing not as
in isolation but as in integration with other products and services in the given context. Based on this perspective,
first of all, students tried to articulate memorable experiences from people in the community by employing the life
story interview method and ethnographic observation. By analyzing the collected data, second, students created
preliminary design concepts based on desires or visions of people in the community. Once the preliminary
concepts were developed as a theme, next, specific design concepts and ideas were generated to support the
themes. The deliverables of the secondary design concept included storyboards or scenarios explaining why the
suggested design concepts were meaningful for the community and create value. A number of presentations and
discussions were made with people in the community to see how their offerings were relevant to the community.
2. COMMUNITY CENTERED DESIGN
The word “community” is derived from the Latin word, “communitas” consisting of two words; “cum” is
with/together and “munus” is a gift. It implies that a community is a group or society in which people close enough
in time and space interact with each other and have cultural, religious, ethnic, or other characteristics in common.
(World English Dictionary). In terms of its scale, community centered design has much broader perspectives than
that of user centered design. Unlike a conventional user centered design approach focusing mainly on
interactions between a user and a product, community centered design requires designers to have holistic
perspectives with which to see the harmonious relationship between human-to-product, human-to-service, or
human-to-entire system. In order to gain holistic perspectives, designers must understand people’s motivation,
behaviors (Merholz et al., 2008) and dreams (sanders, 2001). As John Dewy (2005) mentioned in his book, “Arts
as Experience”, every touch point in which people interact with any element surrounding them will generate
experiences. He also mentioned that experiences will be deeper and richer when we have sufficient past
experiences to fully understand our present experiences (Dewy, 2005). Similarly, Sanders (2001) describes that
experiences could be produced when our memories and dreams meet each other. In other words, our
interpretation of the present world is influenced by our past experiences while our future goals will be shaped by
the interpretation of our current experiences. Furthermore, human experiences are subjective and innately
personal activities which evoke different meanings for different people (Sanders, 2001). For this reason,
designers cannot design experiences but elements that people can interact with to stage desired experiences
(Forlizzi and Ford, 2000; Sanders, 2001; Pine and Gilmore, 2011). In order to design the elements, then,
designers must understand people’s motivations, behaviors (Merholz et al.,2008) and dreams (Sanders,2001).
Based on this notion, this project adapted an in-depth interview method, called Life History Interview, as a way to
understand the meaning of the town for people living in the community.

3. RESEARCH APPROACH
On January 2011, the students took a trip to the town of Batawa for a tour of the community and to gather data.
The students toured the town and interviewed the community in a ski hill chalet. In order to gain experiential
information to develop emphatic relations with people in the community, life history interview method was
employed in this project. Because it was almost impossible to interview everyone in the town, we asked the BDC
office to announce people in the community to participate in a day-long interview session with us. A number of
community people attended the session to share their experiences, memories and dreams about the town. The
goal of the interview was to collect data concerning people’s life stories in the town and categorize them to find
significant commonalities and differences. Instead of asking them to tell everything about the town, a few key
experience of events such as ‘peak experience’, the most funniest and interesting memory in the town, and ‘nadir
experience’, the opposite memory of a peak experience, were asked. Specifically, the peak experience was about
a moment or episode in which interviewees experienced extremely positive emotions, like joy, excitement, great
happiness, uplifting, or even deep inner peace while nadir experience is about a specific experience in which they
felt extremely negative emotions, such as despair, disillusionment, terror, guilt, etc.
 Students asked them to describe exactly what happened, where it happened, who was involved, what
they did, what they were thinking and how they were feeling, what impact this experience may have had upon
them, and what this experience says about who they were. The interview was divided into a number of sections
and began by asking general questions and moved to the particulars. While gathering information during the
interview, students also tried to ask themselves and answer questions such as ‘what to make’ and ‘why people
should care about it’, etc. Overall, the life history interview helped the students to have empathy in understanding
people’s life in the community. In addition, communicating and interacting with the community helped the students
to gain knowledge of the different aspects of Batawa and identify common issues and opportunities. The students
identified problems and issues that would not have been recognized if the community had not partaken in the
group discussions. All comments were taken into consideration and analyzed for brainstorming ideas through
mind maps and sketches.
The students returned to Batawa a month later to present their design ideas through their early prototypes
in a meeting with people from the community. Receiving feedback proved to be helpful to the students. By
spending time in the town and interacting with the community leaders and local people, the students were able to
get familiar with the importance of community engagement and further develop their concepts.

4. RESULTS
The Interviews were not heavily scripted in an attempt to prove hypothesis by exactly replicating questions and
activities across subjects. Rather, they were designed to elicit stories about experiences by responding to what
participants said and allowing the conversations to turn to unexpected directions. It is more like facilitated
storytelling than surveying. Based on the interviews with the community and discussions with people in BDC,
students created different visions, designs and prototypes for the town of Batawa with six new design categories
including 1) Splash Pad – developing a community gathering place with splash pads in front of the Batawa’s town
center, 2) Dino Dig - transforming existing Dino Dig and its surrounding area into a family-oriented destination that
promotes educational and recreational activities, 3) Hiking Trails – redesigning existing hiking trails around the
town with four specific themes such as the family trail, the exercise trail, the art trail, the nature trail, 4) Community
Garden – redesigning the existing community garden area, 5) All- year-round Ski Hill – suggesting ideas to use
the existing ski hill during off-season. After considering the five categories as a system, students were divided into
six teams and each student in a team developed a feasible concept of a specific component that would make the
system better and develop the town in a more sustainable and healthy place to live in.
After the meetings with the community people, students generated some primitive ideas for the chosen
category and reviewed the ideas by asking questions such as 1) Motivation (Why do users want to engage with
your offerings? What do they hope to get from the offerings?), 2) Expectation (Do the ideas /
solutions/suggestions meet users’ expectations?), etc. The review questions helped them to check out the value
of their ideas and specify a right direction to go. They also encouraged them to choose a specific idea and its
rationale. They used storyboards and scenarios to effectively explain why the suggested design concepts would
be meaningful for the community and create value. Once a specific design concept for each category was
articulated, students worked on their design in detail. Multiple sketches and prototypes were used based on three
considerations; 1) user context – what activities people are doing, how these activities fit into their lives, 2)
product context – what your design looks like, 3) Product performance – what kinds of functionality your design
may provide, etc.

5. DESIGN OUTCOMES

Out of 5 ~6 different offerings per team, two projects were selected for description in this paper.

5.1 Splash pad - Arbor Shelter system and Water Funnel

Arbor Shelter System
The overall design and construction was designed to remind a connection with nature;, for example, the frame
construction echoed the aesthetics of branches on a tree. The shelter’s panels mimicked a forest canopy with the
varying degrees of coverage from the elements. The modular setup of the arbor system allowed the installation to
be easily conducted on site and to the clients’ specifications. First, the bases would be set into the base area
surrounding the shelter, and then the remaining branch parts would be cut to predetermined hoist system. With all
the parts having a circular telescopic design, welding could be easily be done and produce a strong (corner weld
joints) structural support. The shelter panels would be installed with the same sling and hoist system and would
be attached to the support frame with a ball and joint component. The perforated panels would be placed last
connecting the solid panels using a simple lap joint weld on the edges. In addition, the shelter panels were
arranged in a way that the water drainage would be controlled and could be maintained in a tractable way. The
modularity of the system made possible a setup that allowed the client to arrange the shelter in a way they
desired.

Figure 1.Arbor Shelter System

Water Funnel
The suggested design was a simple structure with various water ejecting effects by installing different types of
nozzles. For example, the water funnel feature emitted a “morning glory” nozzle effect from the top of the
structure. The simple structure only required two main components: the tubular structure, and a base. Feature
flow rates were classified as “high” and “low,” and could be adjusted to increase or decrease the height and
diameter of nozzle effect.
Figure 2. Water Feature Design

5.2 Dino Dig – Exploration Trail and The Arc

Exploration Trail
The goal of exploration trail design was to expand the dino dig experience into an exploration trail where kids
would be encouraged to make discoveries and learn more about dinosaurs and rocks and minerals. This concept
would provide kids with opportunities to role play as an explorer, an archaeologist and become whoever they want
to be. Kids were free to run sporadically and spontaneously, and were encouraged to explore, discover and
investigate items along their way. This open trail concept featured a segment of the trail that would provide a
natural environment with green space.

Figure 3. Exploration Trail in Dino Dig area

The Arc
This modular bench was inspired by the form of dinosaur skeletons. This versatile seating system consisted of
two parts; the circular component acted as both small tables and joints for the long linear benches, arrangements
of various shapes and sizes of which could be made. The modularity aimed to accommodate the potential
expansion of the Batawa dino dig area, and at the same time offer a fun and flexible solution for the ever
changing demographic.
The Batawa dino dig would welcome a wide variety of visitors, with the majority being families and large
school/summer camp groups. This modular seating system allowed for great flexibility to accommodate different
types of activities that would take place nearby. Seating units could be arranged around the play features (dino
dig, playgrounds), along the trails, in a large circle in an open area for school and camp group activities, or small
clusters for families.

Figure 4. The Arc, the bench in Dino Dig area

5.3. Hiking Trails – The Exercise Trails and The Art Trail
The Exercise Trail
This design intended to provide a way for trail users to get a cardio-vascular workout in a natural setting without
having to stop walking/running/hiking, as is the case with most exercise trails. Typical exercise trails include
workout stations at which the user may stop and perform repetitive motions. This stop-start requirement breaks
the continuity of the hiking experience and diminishes the outdoor advantage of an exercise trail. Replacing the
static workout stations with a series of obstacles allows the user to keep hiking while getting a more effective
workout than from a standard hiking trail. These obstacles were designed to provide a variety of workout
possibilities. The user could choose to walk, run, or jump across using only their feet; climb across using only their
hands; or use both feet and hands. The various structures in the exercise trail would be most used by members of
the Batawa community in their daily fitness routines. Additionally, the squadrons based at Canadian Forces Base
(CFB) Trenton could make use of the trail for training marches. The students at Royal Military College (RMC) in
Kingston could incorporate the trail into their obstacle design course, adding to and using the trail. Lastly, visitors
to the community could make use of the trail as one of the many activities drawing them to spend a day in Batawa.
Figure 5. The Exercise Trail

The Art Trail

This is a system of plinths that encourage collaborative art through the Canadian tradition of inukshuk making.
Hikers passing by the art trail would at first see what they would presume to be a seating area. Through signage
and from seeing the large commissioned inukshuk sculpture in the center of the place, people would know that
this area is actually used for stacking rocks. Stacking rocks can be a challenging exercise, but it creates very
beautiful outdoor arts. As more hikers make inukshuks, the true use of the outdoor art gallery will become clearer
to visitors and Batawa residents alike. The Outdoor Art Gallery could also be used for displaying temporary
exhibits in summer, and mini-snowmen and ice-inukshuks in winter. The system of plinths would encourage
collaborative art through the Canadian tradition of inukshuk making. The area would promote collaborative public
art without encouraging vandalism. Visitors should be encouraged to take rocks home as a memory of Batawa.
The town of Batawa would then serve both as a site of cultural and artistic exchanges between residents and
visitors.

Figure 6. The Outdoor Art Gallery in the art trail

5.4. Community Garden

Water Trolley
This design would be able to allow the user to transport and deliver (spray) a large amount of water to the needed
location quickly and easily. It features a large tank with wheels and a handle that allows the tank to be moved.
The handle also doubles as a lever for an air pump that adds air pressure to the tank, allowing the water inside to
be sprayed through the included hose and spray gun. The function was inspired by currently available sprayers
that were often worn on the user’s back. However, these were generally small, and designed to spray chemicals
as a mist. The Water Trolley expanded on this concept and enlarged the size of the tank and the air pump,
increasing the amount of water carried and sprayed. The form did not have a deliberate inspiration, but it might
be likened to the shape of ceramic water urns in various cultures. The pipes for the pump were concealed in the
Trolley’s support frame. The product promotes sustainability because it allows water to be transported and
delivered to the needed area without the use of gas or electric pumps.

Figure 7. The water trolley and its usage

Community Sharing Basket

The Community Sharing Basket helps the community to share relevant information regarding their Community
Garden. This includes sharing harvested product, recipes and notes and memos. Since the Community Garden
was designed for the future, the product featured both analog and digital ways of communicating. Users can scan
the QR code with his smartphone to connect to the Batawa Community Garden Blog. Once connected to the Blog,
he or she will be able to retrieve and share recipes, canning techniques, etc. while relaxing on a nearby bench.
He may even access the blog while at home.

5.5 All- year-round Ski Hill

DNA (Dynamic Natural Aerial)
This is a climbing object designed to create a challenging and fun experience in a cost effective manner with
minimal environmental impact. DNA used all natural materials in its structure and was installed easily to a tree
without causing any harm to it. This was constructed through a simple system of wood beams, lashings and knots.
The maple beams were designed to be easy to build and depending on the time frame of use, fully organic ropes
can be used for semi- permanent installations. Because of the use of ropes and wood beams, the installation can
be performed by anyone who knows the basics of lashing and knots, such as someone who’s in the scouts or was
part of them.

Figure 8. DNA (Dynamic Natural Aerial)

Balance Zip Rail

Balance Zip Rail is an intermediate level structure for the Batawa Ski Hill Obstacle Course. It features a rider
carrier that slides on a track in which the weight needs to be balanced by the two riders to slide down smoothly.
This structure incorporates the four design objectives of physical fitness, teamwork excitement and education.
The participants will first need to pull the carrier up to the starting location using the rope and the pulley system.
This is essentially an exercise for arm and leg muscles. The relatively heavy weight of the carrier can be pulled
more easily with the help of a pulley system.
Balance Zip Rail rewards the participants with the excitement of speed for their teamwork as well as their
hard work from completing the previous exercises on the obstacle course. In addition, it is a motivator for
participants to work towards to. Furthermore, the Balance Zip Rail is a real-life demonstration of physics concepts
such as Velocity calculations, gravity, etc. High school physics teachers can bring their students on field trips to
learn different physics concepts in real applications and in a different environment than in the classroom.

Figure 9. 1:12 scaled working prototype and sketches of the Balance Zip
In conclusion, this project provided students with ‘outside of textbook’ experiences as well as expansion of their
viewpoints with which to see audience of their design not just from a particular user group but from an entire
community. Furthermore, there was reciprocal collaboration between designers and the community during the
project. The community assisted the designers’ idea generation process and provided clarification to specify the
final design concepts. The experiences gained in this project will be valuable for their future careers as designers.

REFERENCES
Chung,W. and Le,C (2011). Batawa Project Executive Report 2011,School of Industrial Design, Carleton University In Partnership with Batawa
Development Corporation.
Dewey, J. (2005). Art as Experience. New York, NY: Perigee. (Orig. pub. 1934.)
Forlizzi, Jodi L., and Ford. S. (2000). The building blocks of experience: An early framework for interaction designers. Paper presented at the
3rd conference on Designing Interactive Systems: Processes, Practices, Methods, and Techniques, in Brooklyn, New York.
Merholz, P., Schauer B., Verba D., and Wilkens T.(2008). Subject to change: Creating great products and services for an uncertain world.
Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media.
Pine, Joseph B., and James H. Gilmore.(2011). The experience economy: Work is theatre and every business a stage. 2nd ed. Boston, MA:
Harvard Business Review Press.
Sanders, E. (2001). Virtuosos of the experience domain. Paper presented at the 2001 IDSA Education Conference.