A bleak, experiential futures installation exploring how the future of vibrant communities look like.

Timeline

Sep '22 - Dec '22

Role

Researcher Branding & UI/UX Designer

Collaborators

Serena Wang, Graana Khan, Victoria Nguyen, Nila Gao, Sachi Bafna

Client Project Brief

What are the futures of vibrant communities in Pittsburgh?

This slice of the future was called Peoples’ Vertex, a secret community gathering space for people and organisations to exchange help and share a sense of camaraderie.

We held an experiential futures installation, totalling 40 guests comprises of NSR clients, board members, and the wider CMU community.

interactive kiosks and menu

UI Interaction and worldbuilding

The UI serves as an interactive and ‘futuristic’ medium between the curated services and users, while also roleplaying the possibilities of future narratives/work offered by patrons of the bar.
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Research & Concept development

Surveying responses

We conducted user interviews with nonprofit leaders and synthesized our findings with an affinity diagram, through specific quotes/phrases noted.

Research & Concept development

Identifying signals and drivers: What are some existing challenges non-profits face, and expect to in the future?

Interviews from over 10+ grassroots and non-profits to identify signals and drivers.

A shift towards more individual involvement and local efforts

Leaders envisioned a vibrant community as one that is tight knit, where everyone is able to help each other out.

Some of the long terms and trends (drivers) include technological advancements and lack of funding. We discovered that smaller organisations anticipate these challenges, and also have a fear sustaining a business and organisation model.

Futures Ladder

Using insights and themes from our interview, we brainstormed more optimistic and pessimistic future scenarios regarding the nonprofit landscape in Pittsburgh.

NSR, our client, was most interested in the scenarios that involved the centralisation of resources, where physical spaces become collaborative, dedicated areas for groups to tackle wicked problems. They were also interested in scenarios of nonprofit marginalisation by institutions, and losing their working privileges in pursuit of larger impact.

Evaluating impact of futures - Futures Wheel

We considered how this future impacts society from a social, technological, ecological, economic, and political way, which can be used to think about how we want to prompt participants.

A backalley, stigmatized speakeasy experience for visitors

Several artefacts were created to support the narrative of a speakeasy based in the future called People’s Vertex, where Nonprofits and other grassroots organizations face heavy resistance from the system, to the point where their work can be described as back alley and stigmatized.
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Final Takeaways

A future scenario didn’t have to be perfect, it just had to exist as a starting point for conversation. What if this were the future, why would it exist and what would that mean to you? That's what we asked participants.‍