Simulation becoming reality...

Experiment 4 filefront - YES IT'S DONE!!!!!!!

Final Level

UT3 Cooked package can be retrieved here.

Position Statement

"I was watching her.
She walked out her
frontdoor to the
intersection,a she
looked left and then
crossed! I wanted to
shout out "STOP". I
repeat over and over
in my head,"Why
didn't she know to
stop? It was red..."
"

When experiencing a physical, emotional or psychological disorder, a daily task as simple as crossing the street with the instruction of a red light is often the moment of truth for a young person trying to attain independence. It is disorienting, confusing and chaotic!

Across the world there have been three prototypes (Maryland, Michigan in the USA and Bristol, London) set up to address this lack of independence aiming to teach young people to attain these skills in a safe and comfortable setting. The key to this development and design is transference when taking this simulation of reality and implementing it in day to day life.

Here, in Sydney, Australia, the aim has remained, yet the medium has shifted with the aid of gaming technology as a medium for such simulation. The success and data from post-evaluation of the other three facilities will inform the design decisions, but this new type of form can be somewhat compared to that of skills learnt by avatars in games such as Second Life. This centres the idea of gaming as the main tool to achieve lifeskills. Gaming becomes the light that guides these young people to a path of confidence.

On site, the stack is this light, a white glowing object that will be the centre, used as a screen to project the skill teaching games on. As the player moves up the levels of the building, so his skill set will grow encouraging...

- Problem solving

- Following directions

- Making choices

- Socialization

- Budgeting

- Communication

- Money Skills

Simulation becomes reality.

My Client

Target group: Children - Young adults
Aged: 4-21

A range of physical and psychological disorders that inhibit independence often govern peoples lives. This reality is pressing, stressful and very isolating for those experiencing it. In order to afford a more confortable life with a greater sense of independence, basic lifeskills can be taught encouraging personal growth.

Form....The Vertical Streetscape...

The target of this facility is "permanent regional safety and education and training facility in the form of a real village." It aims to target 6th grade students positioning itself as "interactive interventions for the prevention of injuries."

Seattle Public Library

"Straight ahead are the stacked and overlapping platforms that support the reading rooms and open areas equipped with computer work stations. Central to the building is a four-tier "Books Spiral" housing the nonfiction collection. This gently sloping pedestrian route, with stairs, ramps, and escalators, is sequenced according to the Dewey Decimal System. It has a capacity for 1.4 million books and other materials."

— Robert Such, ArchitectureWeek No. 236

Research report - 'Lifeskills - Learning for Living'

Prior to this report, there was little research done on the efficiency of this kind of facility in teaching skills usually not taught in a school or classroom environment. The other facility with a similar purpose is located in Maryland and little analysis of the processes has been undertaken. The main success of the Maryland program was "the provision of a distinct site which could deliver the program to large numbers of children, the teaching of practical skills which could not be readily taught at school and the development of good communication between children and safety departments."

Research report 187
This research is "An evaluation of the Lifeskills-Learning for Living program" from 2001-2003. The research has been undertaken by an outside party removing in possibility of bias in evaluating the results.
In this particular case, the Children are between the ages of 10 and 11. "The evaluation tested children's safety knowledge immediately after their visit to Life skills and also three months and 12 months later. Their self-confidence and performance on safety skills were also assessed either at the Life skills centre or at a different site three months after their visit." The data was collection through three different means; "paper and pencil questionnaire, observations of children completing specific tasks and focus group discussions. "

Results
"The Year 6 data showed that, three months after a visit to Lifeskills, children were more
knowledgeable and performed better than the Control children in all areas studied (Home safety, Fire safety, First aid, Road safety, and Drugs), and on all tests in these areas, except for two of the three Road safety tests - seat belt and pedestrian visibility A year later, in Year 7, the Lifeskills children were still more knowledgeable about Home safety, Fire safety and Road safety although not on as many tests as they were previously. The Lifeskills children were no longer more knowledgeable than the Control children about First Aid and Drugs.

The children’s confidence in dealing with emergencies was assessed by how quickly they started
to act on the performance tests and by their response to direct questions about their confidence on the paper and pencil tests. The Lifeskills children were more confident than the Control children on both measures. Their confidence, as measured by speed of reaction, was entirely appropriate since the Lifeskills children who were quicker to react were the ones who performed the task better."



"A limitation of the current evaluation is that due to time constraints during school visits, only half of Lifeskills’ scenarios could be assessed. Thus it is not possible to comment on children’s
acquisition of skill and knowledge in the other safety areas the programme sets out to cover. Also of course the performance measures involved role-playing rather than observing the children dealing with genuinely hazardous or life-threatening events. Nevertheless these role-playing performance tasks are a fuller test of the children’s successful acquisition of safety skills than the paper and pencil tests in the current evaluation or the measures used in some other evaluations which rely solely on the opinions of users of an intervention to assess the intervention’s effectiveness. The performance tests in the current evaluation require the children to “do” rather than merely to “say” what they would or should do. They are therefore likely to be better predictors of children’s responses in a real-life emergency."


Source: http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrhtm/rr187.htm
RR187 - An evaluation of the Lifeskills - Learning for Living programme

"You are what you do, not what you say!"

A springboard for my concept...Precedents

"I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming."
- Katherine Mansfield

In order to design, monitor and further the development of a life skills program, concurrent, reflective and continual research is needed. The pre-construction research phase of such organizations is heavy and long winded. This is of utmost importance because the original funding (in the case of a community funded facility) is blind capital raising which cannot be supported by any physical building or precedent initially.

In the case of this design, there are two fantastic facilities that can be used as a springboard for concept exploration and effectively "selling" the idea, not to mention a wealth of research information to learn and grow from.
The research undertaken at The Friendship Circle in West Bloomfield, Michigan and The CREATE Centre, Bristol, London are just two sources which allow continual evaluation of facilities and hence, further development targeting the user's needs.

Click here for Video about Detroit facility

Accident prevention in the UK
The Health of the Nation white paper established accident prevention as a Key Area. This
priority continued in the more recent Saving Lives: Our Healthier Nation which set a target to
reduce the death rates from accidents by at least one fifth and to reduce the rate of serious injury from accidents by at least one tenth by 2010.

"Accidents are the commonest cause of death in children under 15 years and every year accidents also leave many thousands permanently disabled or disfigured. Each year in the UK about 600 children die in accidents and 10,000 are left with disabilities. Around half of all accidental deaths of children under 15 involve a motor vehicle whilst other main causes include drowning, fire, suffocation and falls, many of which happen in the home. Further, around 1.2 million children are injured outside their homes each year in parks, fairs, playgrounds, on the street, using sports facilities and in educational settings. Accidents disproportionately affect children in deprived communities, especially those living in temporary accommodation. "

Methodology - A Village
"Traditionally, mass media health education interventions have disseminated information to the public via public broadcasts, posters and written leaflets. With time, it has become apparent that knowledge by itself is rarely sufficient to change behaviour. A person must also want to change, acquire the skills to do so and have the confidence to use these skills. Not surprisingly therefore, interventions addressing this range of skills are more successful than interventions focusing on knowledge alone."

Source: http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrhtm/rr187.htm
RR187 - An evaluation of the Lifeskills - Learning for Living programme

Shift - the concept refined

I sat down today and got some perspective on the essence of confidence building as people and within society as a whole.
When we look at the foundations of confidence building, we view a perceived lack of ability or life-skills. When we wake up in the morning for university or work, we turn to the clock beside us and review the time, then we turn over in bed and rapidly calculate how many minutes we have to shower, brush our teeth, eat breakfast, possibly review the news, get dressed, transport ourselves to our destination and pick up a coffee on the way.
The question I asked myself when waking up this morning was; how many skills are required to complete these menial tasks taken for granted for just one hour at the beginning of our day?

• Reading time
  
• Simple maths
• Hygiene
• Telling hot from cold
• Gaging how much shampoo is the right amount to wash your hair
• Brushing your teeth
• Getting dressed
• Matching your socks
  
• Placing your shoes on the right feet
• Tying your shoelace
• Toasting the bread
  
• Getting to the bus on time
• Having the correct change
• Pressing the button at your stop
• Lining up
  
• Placing an order for coffee
• Meeting your class

A person's experience of confidence is relative to their situation. It reminded me of an experience I had at the beginning of this year, whilst living in the United States of America. I visited a life skills program from which emerged, confident, adept, skilled and enthusiastic young people, all of whom had varying degrees of disability. These developed skills were all relative to and challenged society's perception of what is normal.

What is normal??

So....I had a "light-bulb" moment; maximizing a person's absolute potential in society is about attaining life skills relative to each person's own capabilities. That is, being confident is being the best YOU can be.

Image

Image = images

Mirror= mirrors

Perspective = perspectives

Shape = shapes

How does confidence building become a confidence building?

So now, research is developing and I begin to ask myself how to evolve a concept into a solid representation of ideas. A physical representation of my concept is the key:
...a series of media to explain a series of ideas...
Layering
5 emotions experienced by those "suffering" from a lack of confidence
- Isolated
- Fearful
- Embarrassed
- Rejected
- Intimidated

Dove advert...

Installation art - The site illuminated with colourful boundary....