Friday Five with our Design Researcher: Adeline
1/ What attracted you to a career in anthropology — and now Design Research? Tell us about your journey so far.
Anthropology, or ethnography is a means for me to understand the world in all its systemic, beautiful mess. Stories, shared experiences, behaviours, emotions, languages, desires, silences, unrealised dreams.. people contain knowledge in multitudes and latitudes. If we can safely say this, how might we access this knowledge?
I’ve always been fascinated by how people and cultures work. How do we know what we know? Is this a unique or collective experience? What happens to these experiences and knowledge accrued in our lifetime? Most people point these questions to psychologists, behavioural economists… I think these are questions which reside in a system we know as Culture.
My anthropological journey is a meandering tale. I’ve produced documentaries, built a few businesses and teams around fabrication cafes, a curiosity and digital literacy school for kids, an interdisciplinary online art x tech gallery, and I’m lucky I get to still learn many things every day.
Ethnography came in useful when I had to uncover stories of wartime survivors, to produce documentaries on what food culture and security was like in a time of scarcity. Ethnography came in helpful when I listened to what parents were really concerned about, so I could design delightful classroom experiences and teaching tools for kids in the 21st century. Ethnography helped me discern and understand the subtle, yet powerful dynamics when wealth managers interact with their clients, so I could distil which tools would come in useful for them to be better at what they do.
Despite different media and outputs, I believe the fundamentals remain the same — why does this group of people feel, behave, and think the way they do? What social re-configurations and systems can I build to make their lives better? These understandings extend into the little details which make design so powerful. How do we make our audience feel understood, and have a sense of belonging? What systems can I build, what norms can I shape and reconfigure, to make their lives better?
2/ How do you think your background in anthropology can help design better solutions and experiences?
I believe that a fundamental part of design is to solve problems for people. The tricky part is to understand what ‘better’ means. There’s a Chinese saying — “two people may sleep on the same bed, but they have different dreams.” How do we design for similarities, and how do we design for differences? How can we design for ‘better’ when you can’t make everyone happy? I believe a good designer is able to sift through these nuances of human desires and discomfort and to find the appropriate cultural, material, visual, and language. Despite our differences, there is I believe, a fundamental part of what makes us universally human.
We often talk of “data” as numerals: model-able, manageable, containable, pliant, predictable. I believe a good ethnographer is able to listen, really listen, and try our best to understand humans as sites of embodied values, emotions, knowledge, behaviours. A good designer is able to synthesise these understandings to create “something” — a conversation that addresses these experiences in a functional and emotional way. Often, we call this “something” a “solution”, but I prefer to think of it as an ongoing process, not unlike behavioural / experience / social engineering.
3/ Who or what inspires you?
Nature, in all its wilderness, mystery, and tempered logic. I am humbled by people who are naive, who believe the world can change for the better, and who work tirelessly to make that happen, no matter how big or small.
4/ We know you have a passion for sustainable architecture, what draws you to this field?
I became really concerned about our over-reliance on sand about two and a half years ago. Did you know that sand is the second scarcest resource on earth? The build industry is notoriously unsustainable. I looked at the data, and the numbers were shocking. The concrete industry is the 3rd largest CO2 emitter, 50% of all waste on earth is construction waste, 50% of energy consumption in cities go into thermal regulation in buildings (residential and offices).. the list goes on.
Architects, engineers, and property developers I spoke to are aware of this problem. However, everyone in the industry concedes that the fragmented, relationship-driven nature of the industry makes change incredibly hard. I am aware that I am not an architect, nor a developer by any means, but what do people mean when they say change is hard? Maybe I am naive, but I want to believe that people are resistant to change — not because they are fundamentally obstinate, but because there hasn’t existed a simpler, more meaningful alternative that can shape their behaviour in a more positive way.
5/ Is there a particular design challenge or problem you’re passionate about helping solve?
Sustainability in the built environment, education and employment for economically disadvantaged groups, and a personal pet peeve, traffic jams in Jakarta.
