YourGround Triumph with 6 Awards and National Recognition
CrowdSpot is incredibly honoured to receive recent recognition for our project YourGround. We would like to extend this gratitude towards our collaborating partner XYX Lab, Monash University.
The outcome of our collaboration has not only resulted in a mix of prestigious design and place-making awards (detailed below) but importantly help to provide better outcomes for women and gender-diverse people within our urban environments.
The YourGround project is an interactive map and communication platform, designed to enable more inclusive public spaces for everyone to enjoy leisure, sport and play. As the impact of gendered violence reverberates across our communities, Monash University’s XYX Lab, and digital consultancy, CrowdSpot, teamed up with 23 local Victorian councils to crowdsource perceptions of safety in public space. YourGround empowered individuals to critically assess their local streets, parks, trails and recreational spaces in order to expose the often hidden public safety experiences of women and gender-diverse people.
Vice Chancellor’s Excellence Award for Diversity and Inclusion 2022
CrowdSpot is incredibly honoured to have now received 6 awards and national recognition for the YourGround project. The Vice-Chancellor’s Excellence Awards for Diversity and Inclusion recognise those who have made an outstanding contribution to supporting diversity and fostering inclusion at Monash and beyond. The project took place within the context of Covid-19 across metro, suburban and regional Victoria, and has enabled more inclusive public spaces for everyone to enjoy leisure, sport and play. The outcome of our collaboration has resulted in a mix of prestigious design and place-making awards to ensure that the future planning and design of public spaces are safer for women and gender-diverse people. YourGround empowered individuals to critically assess their local streets, parks, trails and recreational spaces in order to expose the often-hidden public safety experiences of women and gender-diverse people.
Good Design Awards 2022
“We know that good design, when used effectively, can improve our quality of life and make the world around us better, safer, more efficient and more beautiful”.
— Dr. Brandon Gien, CEO of Good Design Australia
YourGround is a digital mapping platform that was formed through the partnership between Crowdspot and Monash University XYX Lab. This initiative employed map-based tools to create safer spaces for women and gender-diverse people throughout Victoria. At this year’s Good Design Awards event, YourGround received a prestigious Good Design Award Winner Accolade in the Social Impact category in recognition of outstanding design and innovation. The Good Design Awards Jury commented:
“YourGround is an innovative example of how to effectively draw on the lived experiences of women and gender-diverse people to create inclusive spaces. The digital mapping tool builds a valuable user-generated spatial dataset. Additionally, it aids in forming a range of location-based insights for improving recreational experiences in public spaces.”
The prestigious Good Design Awards bring together the Australian and international design community to celebrate design excellence and innovation. The Good Design Awards are the highest honour for design and innovation in the country and reward projects across 11 design disciplines covering more than 30 categories and sub-categories. This year’s event was held on 16 September at the International Convention Centre, where over 1000 guests were in attendance.
In addition, Dr. Brandon Gien, CEO of Good Design Australia and Chair of the Australian Good Design Awards said:
“To be recognised with an Australian Good Design Award is a significant achievement, given the incredibly high standard of projects submitted in this year’s Awards. The Good Design Award is a valuable independent endorsement of professional design quality. It tells the world this project not only represents design excellence, but it also surpasses the criteria for design innovation and design impact.”
This award recognises the passion and dedication of the responsible designers, that include Nicole Kalms, Anthony Aisenberg, Gene Bawden, Anwyn Hocking, and Isabella Webb.
YourGround is a digital mapping platform that will advance knowledge of safety in public spaces for women and gender-diverse people. This research tackled the complexity of who has the right to the city, and further investigated how COVID-19 has changed the way in which we encounter public space. YourGround employed data collection as a mechanism to better understand social exclusion in public space and its numerous intersections with gender disadvantage and discrimination. Through crowdsourced data, YourGround received 6000 submissions in the data collection period between April and July 2021. This scope of the project extended throughout Victoria and intended to provide better gender outcomes, whilst providing an opportunity to inform future policy development.
A quick glance at the YourGround Interactive Archive Map shows the significant reach of the research conducted by Monash University XYX Lab and Crowdspot. This data is available to the public and importantly sheds a light on areas that are of particular safety concern.
Place Leaders Award 2022
The Place Leaders Asia Pacific Awards Program provides a platform for the promotion and celebration of innovation and excellence across a broad field of place-focused work. The awards recognise physical projects, place processes and leadership within the six categories of Place Leadership, Place Project Large, Place Project Small, Place Process, Place Governance and Digital Placemaking. The program highlights the achievements of Place Leaders and the ongoing contribution of the work in delivering successful place outcomes that enrich the life and well-being of all communities.
The Place Leaders Awards were co-hosted by the City of Parramatta on 13 October at Parramatta Square. The event celebrated cutting-edge innovation and excellence in the place sector, with categories covering projects, processes, leadership, governance, and digital placemaking.
This year, XYX Lab Monash University and CrowdSpot received the 2022 Digital Placemaking Award at the Place Leaders Asia Pacific Awards for their project YourGround.
Creating inclusive spaces for women, girls and gender-diverse people is paramount with the implementation of the Gender Equality Act 2020. It cannot be limited to a homogenous approach. Nuanced thinking and multiple gender-sensitive strategies are required. Local streets, parks, trails and recreational areas across Victoria need to accommodate diverse needs.
The Victorian Premier’s Design Award 2022
In 2021, YourGround was highly commended and was a finalist in the Design Strategy category at the Victorian Premier’s Design Awards. YourGround was recognised for its design process, design excellence, design innovation, and design impact.
Some of the jury comments are listed below:
The YourGround communication campaigns are richly inclusive with multiple representations of diversity; of culture, gender, abilities and age. The data gathered from the pins has reinforced the capacity for a single project to reach multiple audiences if carefully codesigned. By working with the LGAs from the beginning, and securing their visual representations, the designers were able to accurately reflect the real social makeup of each individual municipality. This resulted in a genuine, rather than token, representation of diversity across the LGA communities. With the instructions made available in the top seven languages across the locations, and the usability of the map tested with LGA participants, the design team could ensure its ease of use. Being web-based there is no necessity for participants to download an app; nor the requirement for LGAs to invest in one. Once on the website, the map uses smartphone location technology to enable people to accurately pinpoint where their experience is occurring (or had occurred).
Entries in the Victorian Premier’s Design Awards are judged by an eminent jury of national and international design and business experts.
Designers Australia Awards
In 2022 YourGround received an award of merit at the Designer Australia Awards within the Interact category. The Designers Australia Awards 2022 presented by the Design Institute of Australia are the ultimate industry recognition for Australian designers. Focusing on the design process as much as the outcome, each accolade considers how the designer’s work responds to authenticity, diversity, equality, inclusivity, community and the environment. Underpinned by the core values and purpose of the Design Institute of Australia (DIA), the awards are an opportunity to support our emerging and established design community, cultivate collaboration, conversation and deep listening; and recognise our collective commitment to Australian design and its influence on culture and society.
“The Designers Australia Awards value considered design. The DIA promotes diversity, equality and design that contributes positively to our social, cultural and environmental needs and issues. We believe in design that is collaborative and respectful across communities and cultures. We aim to stimulate ambitious innovation and creativity by focusing on the highest level of expertise and professionalism in design practice. ” -DIA President, Gavin Campbell FDIA
YourGround Designers and Project Team:
Dr Nicole Kalms
Anthony Aisenberg
Dr Gene Bawden
Dr Gill Matthewson
Anwyn Hocking
Isabella Webb
Dr Jess Berry
Dr Timothy Moore
Dean’s Award for Research Engagement and Impact 2022
The YourGround Project has received the Dean’s Award for Research Engagement and Impact. Monash Art, Design and Architecture (MADA) researchers work together to undertake vibrant, innovative, creative research that addresses the social, economic and human issues facing Australia and the world. Each year, research excellence is acknowledged through the Dean’s Research and Postgraduate Supervision Awards.
The winners of these awards are a testament to the strong culture of collaboration and innovation that exists across MADA, underpinning the faculty’s ability to translate outstanding scholarship into positive impact. The Dean’s Research Awards are presented across four categories.
Because of the innovative collaborative funding model, YourGround enables local governments to access high-quality data and insights that would normally be outside of their budgets. Communities can use this data to make well-informed decisions that will make recreation safer, more accessible, inclusive and equitable for women and gender-diverse people. The project represents a best-practice approach to advancing active communities and demonstrates how Victoria is leading the way for open space planning and providing equitable access for women and gender-diverse people.
The YourGround project undertook a 13-week survey that crowdsourced women and gender-diverse people’s perceptions of safety when exercising and recreating for health and well-being in Victoria’s open spaces. The YourGround interactive map collected over 6000 submissions across metropolitan, suburban and regional Victoria, uncovering important patterns in our community spaces that make women and gender-diverse people feel vulnerable. This data enables local governments and communities to access high-quality data and insights to make well-informed decisions that will make recreation safer, more accessible, and inclusive for women and gender-diverse people.
To read more about the award, see here.
Want to know more? The full YourGround Victoria Report is available here.
