Illustration credit: Nayla Fayoumi
Photography credit: Felix Kirk
Experiencing the Cultural Richness of London
London is known as a global hub for innovation in financial and professional services, commerce and culture. Culture Mile is a project that is partnering with The Barbican, The Museum of London, Guildhall school of music, City of London, and London Symphony Orchestra. Their teams have been offered a once-in-a-generation opportunity to leverage the north-west corner of London’s outstanding connectivity and reflect it through creative projects that are a link between sectors of the physical and digital realm.
In partnership with Culture Mile marketing team, I was part of an creative project with the purpose of designing a way for people to discover the cultural richness of the City of London
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement I have omitted confidential information related to Culture Mile. All the information in this project is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Culture Mile.
The challenge –
Design an experience that integrates audiences being part of a unified culture
Our goal for the project was to design a way for people to discover the cultural richness of the City of London. Our ambitions were to create an empowering physical or digital solution used by culturally engaged audiences to network in a creative ambient environment at North-west London, and share one culture.
My role
I led the design of the ‘Subtract Book’ between January 2020 and March 2020. I worked alongside: An art and history student, a visual designer, and a psychology student on the research and design scope of the project.
Kickoff -
Dissecting the brief
As we started with this project, we were confused due to the abstract feel of the brief. At first, we did not know from where to start. So, individually we read a total of sixteen literature reviews collectively divided among the team. Our research expanded into potential topics we could make use of in future phases of the project like urbanism and politics, art and architecture, events and placemaking, music, dance and cityscapes.
Extraction of valid research pain-points
After filtering our readings, we learned that:
1. Play in childhood is highly important.
2. Cultural activism constructs meaning in an urban area, allowing ideas to form.
3. Light, role plays a benefit in emphasizing the nature aspect of architectural spaces.
4. Placemaking contributes to the creation of a sense of belonging in a community.
5. Urban areas can potentially tune with music.
The discovery -
cultural spaces were not well connected at the Barbican area
As a further step in our research, we head to the Barbican area, but we lost track at many points and noticed that the cultural spaces were not well connected. For instance, our experience of crossing the Beech Street tunnel mislead us at many times.
While we kept in mind that one of Culture Mile’s primary goals is to make it easier to find our way around the area and between venues, we took a closer look at works from various designers and architects who have linked cultural spaces through tunnels.
One example is ‘the tunnel of light’ in Kiyoto Japan, created by MAD architects to project the outside world (nature) into a dark tunnel.
The above image shows the ‘Tunnel of Light’ by MAD Architects. This image was taken by MAD architects.
A shared interest -
Circulation as macro, play as micro
Moving forward, we noticed that we jumped quickly by focusing on unpleasant and noisy tunnels. Hence, we dropped this and emphasized our topic on our common interest, circulation in general and play in particular. We decided that our target audience would be families.
The above sketch is our mind map around the word ‘movement’. This diagram was drawn by me.
Mapping Circulation
The above image showcases the Postmans Park. This image was taken by me.
As we progressed, we went to several green spaces in the Farringdon area on a Saturday and mapped the circulation of people walking around. I was in charge of mapping people’s circulation flow in Charterhouse square and Postman’s park.
Postman’s Park circulation map
I created measuring tools for this concept. Circles represented the wait intensity when people stopped walking in the site. Colored lines conveyed the trajectory every individual took.
The Charterhouse square circulation map
The discovery -
People were in a rush and did not care about spending time in green spaces
Out of these studies, we noticed that most of the people were in a rush and did not care much about spending time in green spaces.
As for the collected information out of my mapped areas, I discovered that most of the people were groups, not families (as I predicted). Also, when they stopped, they aimed to take pictures of spaces.
Deeper insights -
After conducting the mentioned research, it was evident that this segmentation experience took us nowhere. Knowing the time limitation of the overall project, we figured out that we focused too much on a target audience (families) that we could not see and was barely reachable, especially during weekdays. Also, it was apparent that the area was full of offices, and most of the individuals circulating were businessmen/women rushing all the time.
Since our main interest was the notion of ‘play’, we dived deep into practical work done by other architects and designers related to ‘play’.
One strong example is Assemble studio projects such as the ‘Baltic Street Adventure Playground’ which is a permanent child-led space, highly aiming at creating the notion of ‘play’ out of existing elements in the atmosphere to push children’s creative inputs of playing within the natural aspect of a space.
The above image showcases the Baltic Street Playground. This screenshot was taken from Assemble studio website: https://assemblestudio.co.uk/projects/baltic-street-adventure-playground.
Subtractive values of cityscapes -
On a later stage, we visited the area around Saint Paul’s Cathedral, located in Farringdon and we discovered that:
1. The area has an office culture.
2. We were trying so hard to incorporate culture into a space that does not need a culture. Also, since the brief did not necessarily require from us to bring in 'new things' but rather than bring out something that already exists in that space, we thought of enhancing or modifying things that already live there. We tried creating conditions for existing items.
A new key concept -
Subtractive design
At that point, we wondered how this crowded space would look like if we try to subtract things out of it through multiple phases, then add the movement and chaos into it. In other words, we started to think of having a parametric design system where we design the 'subtractive aspect' of a space both visually and physically.
The above sketch showcases our mind map around the word ‘subtractive’. This sketch was drawn by Felix Kirk.
The above sketch showcases our mind map around the word ‘additive’. This sketch was drawn by Felix Kirk.
Additional insights -
Experimenting around the notion of ‘subtraction’
Subtractive color model
I have started by using the subtractive colour model based on the CMYK colour model as a metaphor, where colours are masked entirely or partially on a white background. Through this insight, I was trying to understand the relationship between things that can cause a subtraction to occur.
A paper-base parametric design system
I have created a parametric design system through a set of pencil drawings on transparent papers. Each paper denoted a layer of existing elements in the Farringdon area (near St. Paul’s Cathedral) intended to be swiped away to subtract objects from the existing space.
The above image showcases Felix Kirk’s first photograph after being painted. This mockup was created by me.
The above image showcases Felix Kirk’s second photograph after being painted. This mockup was created by me.
Categorization to reach our target
As per the feedback we received, we realised that removing trees and buildings is a fundamental procedure. In other words, we noticed that focusing on physical space is essential, but not in the way we conceptualised it.
Therefore, we decided to create a cultural transformation through subtracting social and sensory elements from spaces. We also recognized that ‘categorization’ is key to reach our target.
Dissecting the word ‘subtraction’
We gathered and collectively brainstormed again but deeper around the word ’subtraction’. Then, we used a color-coding system to circle words turned into potential categories.
Filtering words
we created another diagram, filtering the categories to reach potential themes that would give us design directions.
The emergence of themes
Based on what we did previously, we reached four potential themes and explored them:
Language - Series of Tableaux
We thought ‘the language’ theme was huge considering the limited time we had for this project. Therefore, we focused on subtracting one aspect of that matter, the ‘I’ of the self to create ‘togetherness’. The reason behind this choice is that people would only be bound together, limited to one space if they had no self-definition.
Memory - Disruptive Roads
This concept conveys the disruption of the sequence of the ‘9 AM to 5 PM’ working life individuals have. One way of doing so was to rip off the archaeological layer (street) from the culture mile area and create green spaces for people to lose their self of ‘I’ and interact with each other through ‘play’ which would make the city more enjoyable.
The subtraction experience –
Introducing ‘Subtract Book’
Inspired by other designers' artworks regarding ‘not adding anything to spaces', we decided to create an A5 book called 'Subtract' that depicts a selection of visual responses to our methodology of 'Subtractive Design'.
The above photographs were taken by me.
The motive behind this decision was for people to be able to feel the difference between the existing over-saturated culture mile area, and the consequences of taking away from that area to ensure people’s discovery of its cultural richness.
As for my part, knowing that drawing is one strong skill I have, I crafted illustrations where the user of the book could manually subtract doors, windows, and buildings through a red filter.
Felix Kirk and Yitong Tang created visuals conveying the subtraction of laws, relationships, and street signs.
Subtracting buildings -
Animated gif created by me.
Subtracting street signs -
Visual created by Felix Kirk.
Subtracting Laws -
Visual created by Felix Kirk.
Subtracting relationships -
Visual created by Yitong Tang.
Introducing ‘The Disruptive Road’
On another note, we decided that keeping the ‘disruptive road’ concept was a good example. Still, we needed to craft it as a high-fidelity prototype to showcase our concept. Therefore, knowing the area around St.Paul’s Cathedral is traditionally business-centric, the purpose of disrupting the road was to deactivate the workflow and distract people from their life flow, so that the urban space becomes more open for cultures to emerge, shifting into an inner green space.
3D Mockup created by Sarah Smack.
The Impact -
Positive and constructive feedback
The overall feedback was very boosting. Culture Mile team thought that our project portrays ‘reverse piloting’ (To be able to see what happens when we take things away). It would be instrumental in the future, knowing the city of London has got an ambition of reducing the amount of traffic by 40% by 2030 and doesn’t know how to reach this state.
Also, they mentioned that showcasing a possible prototype of subtraction in the city of London was very powerful because they cannot always get enough funds for their on-going projects and will need to test potential outcomes before taking any initiative. As they are not designers, it was exciting for them to learn about subtractive design.