What if bicycle and pedestrian safety shaped the future of city living?
BACKGROUND
Chicago needed to join the global community in accelerating safer means of biking and walking the city. The Moving Design team, assembled by Thirst, wanted to creatively explore this question: What keeps people on — and off — the roads, and how can we move forward together?
MY ROLE
I helped organize and carry out the primary qualitative research (community observations and interviews) while gathering broader secondary research of local and international transportation trends, risks and policies. I joined a collective of small design teams (4-6 people each) in creating and prototyping solutions that connect pedestrians, cyclists and drivers, and make streets safer. We celebrated our solutions with the community that helped inform and create them.
At the project's conclusion, I stayed on to help archive and to design a final book showcasing our process and results.
TEAM
Moving Design "Call to Action"
COLLABORATORS
Thirst Design Collaborative
Active Transportation Alliance
Logan Square alderman and community
Big picture learning
A determining factor in the cyclist-pedestrian-motorist relationship comes down to infrastructure. What we design today must keep in mind what infrastructural support we have in place for users.
CREATIONS
Road & bike signage
Information zine
Carma cards
Group bike rides
Bike safety fashion
Dream bicycles
Underpass tagging
Window displays
Awareness posters
(S)pothole app & booklet
Neighborhood icons
Emergency spoke cards
Experience blog
Friendly car magnets
The pothole brigade
PROTOTYPE
Teams took to the streets to test concepts, using temporary materials (such as chalk) and fun, experiential methods (such as the eye-catching Pothole Brigade).
RESEARCH
We immersed ourselves in the field (primarily Logan Square) and engaged with neighborhood residents and visitors to inquire about their travel.
ARCHIVE
Selected spreads from a visual collection of our process and results.
