Knowledge Management

The importance of evidence based design. 

• get a solid base of knowledge - helpful for quality control etc etc. 
• what is robust and good evidence? 
• for the product to solve the problem it is supposed to solve… build your project on a good foundation. 
• Crowdsourcing our way to better government… politics
• think about class factors… discrimination based on your medium being accessible for everybody. i.e. app dependent on having enough money to have a smartphone to help this!! 
• IMPORTANCE OF USER RESEARCH!!
• Always start from the bottom up not the top down

Feasibility? Utility? Valid? 

initial fertilisation -> developmental growth -> production -> evaluation + regeneration

1. Must understand the user. be valid and work in the way they will live their life. 
2. Ethical concern around the research + product 

The Psychological Impact of Renting

The psychological impact of renting. 

"Nonetheless, there is cross-cultural evidence that people who own their own houses are in better health than people who rent their houses, even controlling for income..."

-http://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-11-682

" Generation rent is suffering, and there’s no end in sight"

-the guardian

"Housing is one of the most basic needs for families, and yet for many Australians it is increasingly at risk. The impact of higher housing costs is most strongly felt by lower-income groups, particularly low-income renters for whom home ownership is increasingly out of reach (Yates & Milligan, 2007).

This paper explores the relationship between housing affordability, housing stress, and mental health and wellbeing. The first section examines some recent statistics on housing affordability in Australia and defines some key terms. Some of the potential impacts of housing issues on health and wellbeing, and how this influences outcomes for Australian families are examined. The relevance of these issues to family and relationship service provision is explored, and ideas for service responses are provided."

- Australian govt website

This is something I have recently been thinking about. As a renter, I wonder how renting a house vs owning it impacts our psyche and mental health/physical health, even allowing for all other variables etc. Renting is a never ending cost. The money comes out of your account every week.  It's not paying off towards a goal, like a mortgage. Effectively, it's just income flushed down the toilet to somewhere it will never touch your bank account again. And the cost will never go away, or decrease, unlike a mortgage or similar goal payment towards something. 

These were some adjectives I associated with renting a house that someone else owns. The adjectives I came up with were - transient, temporary, inferior, vulnerable.

PLAN

It was once an attainable goal for people to work towards owning their own home, but no more is this realistic for a lot of people. The renting population almost outnumbers those that own homes now, and this is set to keep increasing and have - gasp - lifelong renters, with no end in sight!! 

With this demographic set to grow, how can we mitigate/explore/help the negative psychological effect of renting on tenants? 

"Le Grand has argued that housing is no different from any other good in a capitalist society and should be considered fundamentally in monetary terms [32]. The contrary view is that the ontological security provided by housing is high on the hierarchy of needs and confers a unique range of services."

graph

"Tenure appears to be a better predictor of mental health than economic wellbeing. Levels of anxiety and depression are high across social groups – 28% for ABs, 29% for C1s and 31% for DEs."

Renters live a precarious existence where they have no idea if they’ll be living in their home in a year’s time, or if they’ll be able to afford to. They might also live in squalid conditions that they are powerless to do anything about. That lack of stability and comfort erodes their wellbeing so it is no surprise that levels of anxiety and depression are higher than for home owners. Better rights for renters would not only create a fairer housing market, but there’d be public health benefits too."

- http://www.generationrent.org/renters_at_higher_risk_of_mental_health_problems

graph - https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/housing-stress-and-mental-health-and-wellbeing-famili

Shaw, 2004.

GENERATION RENT

GENERATION RENT
factors.

• foreign investors widen the income gap and the gap between homeowners and those who rent 
• no affordable places left because demand is much higher than supply leaving property owners and landlords with all the power
• One in four Kiwi households spend more than 50 per cent of their income on housing costs, according to the Ministry of Social Development's latest Household Incomes Report. (probably more people do in cities also)
• no capital gains tax

A typical house in Auckland now costs 10 times a typical household income. The recommended international maximum is three times.

• • Prices have tripled in the last 15 years while incomes have risen by only two thirds.
  • It would take a typical 25-29-year-old couple seven years to save for a deposit on a $630,000 "affordable" house in Auckland.
  • Assuming they got a bank loan for a smaller amount, they would spend almost half their take-home pay in mortgage repayments. Single people on a median income are out of the running - it would take virtually all their income.
  • If you don't own a home in Auckland by the time you're 40, you're unlikely to get one.
  • New Zealand is the most expensive country in the world to buy a home, based on prices compared to incomes.

Rent - $170

Student loan - $175.

5 extra dollars LOL

• no real minimum standard for people to be allowed to rent their houses out, you can rent horrible mouldy flats out to people with no repercussions or responsibility
  If you can't afford to maintain a house to a rentable standard, perhaps you shouldn't be a landlord! We treat renters in nz as second class and it's totally unfair. Everyone should have the chance to live in a clean, dry home for a reasonable price.
• if you cant afford to keep a dwelling in livable condition you shouldn't be allowed to rent it out. 

Proposal questions

How can visual communication design provide a solution to the housing crisis...?

How can VCD help the demographic of renters get the best possible outcome of their situation?

If you can't afford to maintain a house to a rentable standard, perhaps you shouldn't be a landlord! We treat renters in nz as second class and it's totally unfair. Everyone should have the chance to live in a clean, dry home for a reasonable price

If you can't afford to maintain a house to a rentable standard, perhaps you shouldn't be a landlord! We treat renters in nz as second class and it's totally unfair. Everyone should have the chance to live in a clean, dry home for a reasonable price.

"

Methods of Analysis

http://www.public.asu.edu/~kheenan/courses/101/fall00/101analysis.htm

Dr Katherine Heenan

SPATIAL ANALYSIS
Spatial analysis involves examining the ways in which physical spaces influence and are influenced by the social practices and activities which occur there. In so doing, we explore the connections between the physical space and the ways in which people in that space represent themselves while there in both language and action. We do so in order to understand how physical spaces shape and are shaped by the people who use them, and to help us begin to understand how people create the social and discursive spaces in which they live and move. That is, we engage in spatial analysis as a means of understanding how people construct the culture in which they live and to understand the kinds of connections that may exist or occur between a location and social action; between a space and the way people behave in it. 
 
HISTORICAL ANALYSIS
Historical analysis involves examining the beliefs, practices and values of a text--a term used here in its broadest sense--within its historical moment and in comparison to our current historical moment. When we begin to see differences between past perspectives and our own contemporary perspectives, we see that those past perspectives are rooted in very different assumptions from those we take for granted today. This recognition, in turn, can enable us to begin to see the situatedness--the cultural embeddness--of our own perspectives, and thus, to begin to recognize and then analyze some of the other beliefs and assumptions to which our perspectives are connected.
When we begin to see similarities between past perspectives and our own contemporary perspectives—particularly after we have focussed on differences—we can begin to see that contemporary perspectives are rooted in historical antecedents. We can recognize that many of the beliefs and assumptions which we think of as "ours" have complex origins deep within our culture's past and that this history may be influencing our points of view without our being fully aware of it.
The ability to move back and forth between the analysis of differences and similarities, between the past and the present, is a crucial step in developing the capacity to analyze the antecedents and implications of all perspectives we encounter.
CULTURAL ANALYSIS
Raymond Williams writes in Key Words, "Culture is ordinary; that is where we must start." Cultural analysis, then, starts with the world that surrounds us, the social experiences that shape our identities and the identities of the various groups to which we belong or with which we associate. It involves the discovering the relations among beliefs or practices and other beliefs, practices, assumptions that are going on at the same point in time.
Discovering connections between an issue or text and other aspects of its cultural moment provides a sense of the complex interconnections among various attitudes and beliefs  (for example, see Tompkins' " 'Indians': Textualism, Mortality, and the Problem of History" in Reading Cultures 409). Recognizing these complex interconnections can help us avoid making overly simplistic cause-and-effect analyses.
Cultural analysis enables us to see that a given cultural moment is not static and unified, but rather that there are always tensions among dominant, residual, and emergent perspectives.
DOMINANT, RESIDUAL, EMERGENT
The concepts of dominant, residual, and emergent are drawn from Raymond Williams. These concepts can give us a framework for understanding the complex and dynamic ways in which a culture operates as it continuously attempts to maintain stability and balance in the face of ever-changing views. While one perspective tends to be dominant at a given point, other perspectives are also contending for meaning, some older or more residual, some newer or emergent.
The dominant perspectives are the ones that are embodied in the majority of the society (hence the term, dominant)--or by its ruling and most powerful class. Within the dominant values of any culture, there are many elements of the past, or residual elements, but these elements of the past are being filtered--"reinterpreted, diluted, projected"--so that they can be incorporated into dominant culture. If something residual is truly oppositional to the dominant, the dominant tries to forget it or marginalize it. At times the dominant is successful, at times not.
By residual is meant those beliefs, practices, etc. that are derived from an earlier stage of that society, often very long ago, and which may in fact reflect a very different social formation (different political, religious beliefs, etc) than the present. Residual beliefs ofter remain dominant long after the social conditions that made them dominant have disappeared (e.g. today's assumptions by some people that men are inherently more important/intelligent, etc. than women). Some residual practices are so old that they are archaic (e.g. the belief that the sun goes around the earth), though their presence may still be felt (as when we say, "The sun rose late today.").
Within the dominant, there are also emergent elements, that is elements that are substantially alternative to the dominant. These must be distinguished from those that are simply novel elements of the dominant. Emergent practices are those that are being developed, usually unconsciously, out of a new set of social interactions, as societies change. They often are very different from and actively challenge the dominant. They may themselves become dominant eventually, but that is not an inevitable process.  They start at the margins of society, and may eventually become less marginal. But they may not ever become central. All dominant practices were once emergent; not all emergent practices become dominant. 
 
PERSPECTIVE:
A perspective is a point of view from which a person or group of people look at something at a given time. While each perspective seems “personal,” it is also linked with the larger beliefs of the culture. Thus, it can only be understood and analyzed once it has been placed in those larger contexts.
ANALYSIS:
 Analysis is the separation of a whole into its component parts and the study of those parts in some fashion in order to explain or understand the whole more completely. Analysis most often works to answer the question "Why?" When we analyze your own perspective or that in a text you have read, you will first separate out the various perspectives represented in it and then ask why each perspective exists. 
 

Observational Research

Workshops Week 2 - Notes

Play Theory + Semiotic Theory.

Play Theory - This activity will look at how play and game theory can be used to explore challenges in unique ways.  When play is used to address problems, people open up and think differently, and usually more creatively. We will test run three activities that look at mis-communication, brain-writing (the quiet cousin of brain-storming), and dot voting – setting up a game to observe behaviour. All materials will be provided.

Semiotic Theory - Finding the design. Discursive, conversational, and potentially involving swearing, this workshop aims to help you locate the visual core, angle or issue in your nascent project. Various methods of analysis - semiotic, rhetorical, cultural - will be deployed, lateral approaches will be applauded, and speculative enquiry will be encouraged. Resources: Pens, perhaps, and a preparedness to participate.

Notes from both workshops

Notes Week 1

Areas of Theory Workshops - Week 2

• ethnography
• narrative theory
• semiotics
• play theory
• communication theory

Knowledge management

• Library computer lab workshop - week 3, message on stream
• Center for Teaching + Learning
• Week 4 workshop on Ethics
• Communication - Facebook, Twitter, Stream
• Questions, topics, issues
• Theorised practice
• Keywords
• "Whakatinana" 

Idea - 

• a cause you are passionate about or something you enjoy, etc
• an issue
• communication theory
• key texts, key points
• keywords, philosophies, theories, semiotics
• "modes of design research". contextualising an issue. Social + Ethical function.

VCD Research + Development

• • Week
    1 – Introduction. Strategies into research
    2 – Research Activities. Experience at least two new research activities
    3 – Theory Talk. Studio – discuss your topic’s object
    4 – Theory Talk. Ethics workshops. Advising
    5 – Theory Talk. Themed advising
    6 – Research Proposal briefing and Q&A. Workshops.
    7 – Whakatinana – shared exhibition
    8 – Reflection and Briefing on Supercrit. Advising
    9 – Supercrit
    10 – Writing talk. Writing workshops. Themed advising
    11 – Writing talk. Writing workshops. Advising
    12 – Final briefing. Submission
    13 – Whakatinana and celebration.
• 
  

  Week 1

  • 01:00 Lecture (The Pit)
    02:30 Supervision02:45 Studio

    Lecture
    222.453 Welcome! 
    – Level E spaces
    – The Brief
    – Whakatinana
    – The 453 'Funnel'
    – 3 Shared moments
    – Stream, Twitter, Facebook
    – Supervisors, Advisors etc
    – Year 4 Deans. Lee and Patricia
    – Class Advocates
    – Ethics
    – Q&A– Staff Introductions (2 mins each)

    Theorised Practice (2 min intros)
    – Ethnography MB
    – Narrative Theory CC
    – Play Theory GH
    – Semiotics, Rhetoric, Meaning KK LJ
    – Communication Theory PT TS
    

    2:30 Supervision – catch up

    2:45 Studio – Strategies towards research Short, repeating strategy sessions on research methods and activities to get you started i.e. preparation for Ethnographic field visit. 15 minute blocks. (+ 5 mins to move) 6 repeats.