Gender Shift & Sport

by | 21 Mar 2024 | Architecture & Social Media

The future of sports

Gender Shift & Inklusion

Anja Kirig & Marcel Aberle

Futu­ro­lo­gists and trend rese­ar­chers Anja Kirig and Marcel Aberle have conducted a survey with experts from the world of sports and sports faci­li­ties to look at nothing more and nothing less than the future of sports, on many levels.

What does the gender shift megatrend mean for fan culture?

The Couch by MVRDVPhoto: ©Daria Scagliola & Stijn Brakkee

The gender shift mega­trend does not stop at fan culture in sport. The sports fan land­scape has diver­si­fied. Accu­rate data on the growth of female and LGBT* sports fans over the last twenty years is hard to find. However, several studies suggest that a more acces­sible, consum­er­ori­en­tated fan culture and social inter­ac­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties have opened new oppor­tu­ni­ties for fans of all genders and sexual orien­ta­tions.

Fans of all genders are begin­ning to chall­enge gender stereo­types in sport. The assump­tion that women are disin­te­rested or igno­rant in sport is being chal­lenged by the emer­gence of dedi­cated female* fans, analysts, and commen­ta­tors. This deve­lo­p­ment is helping to break down outdated gender stereo­types in sport.

The demand for greater repre­sen­ta­tion of women’s sport in the sports media has also led to an increase in female sports jour­na­lists and more inten­sive reporting on women’s sport. Events such as women’s foot­ball and the Tour de France for women are recei­ving more atten­tion as a result.

Inci­den­tally, this has a direct impact on the number of women who then (want to) prac­tise the sport them­selves. The debate about equal pay in sport, parti­cu­larly in foot­ball, also illus­trates the change in social expec­ta­tions regar­ding gender equa­lity. Fans are actively shaping and driving this discourse. Groups such as Arsenal FC’s Gay Gooners actively campaign against homo­phobia and promote inclu­sion in foot­ball. These groups help to raise aware­ness of diver­sity and inclu­sion in sports.

Forecast and outlook

Despite the posi­tive deve­lo­p­ments, there is still a lot of untapped poten­tial. However, the inte­gra­tion of a diverse fan culture requires more proac­tive measures from sports

orga­ni­sa­tions, clubs, and asso­cia­tions. A single women’s repre­sen­ta­tive in a club is not enough to realise the full poten­tial of a diverse fan base.

To what extent should the sports facilities be gender-neutral (e.g. changing rooms, showers)? If necessary, what is desired?

The Couch by MVRDVPhoto: ©Daria Scagliola & Stijn Brakkee

In the context of the gender shift mega­trend, gender roles and gender iden­ti­ties are being chal­lenged. This deve­lo­p­ment is parti­cu­larly signi­fi­cant in the context of sport. It is not only many sports that are linked to a binary under­stan­ding of gender, whether soci­ally cons­tructed or insti­tu­tio­nally anchored due to compe­ti­tive condi­tions.

A key approach is to reco­g­nise diver­sity. This is because the younger gene­ra­tion in parti­cular incre­asingly no longer sees itself exclu­si­vely in binary gender cate­go­ries. Gender-neutral approa­ches, such as public swim­ming pools with indi­vi­dual chan­ging rooms and showers, can help people feel comfor­table and safe in sports faci­li­ties regard­less of their gender iden­tity.

The process involves more than just crea­ting gender-neutral spaces. It is about reco­g­nising and valuing the diver­sity of gender iden­ti­ties. Conti­nuous dialogue with the sports commu­nity is a neces­sity. This is the only way to under­stand the needs of diffe­rent groups. There is no universal solu­tion, which is why the invol­vement of users in the design process is so important. Successful initia­tives such as the Euro­Games show how posi­tive change can be brought about by taking diver­sity and inclu­sion into account.

Accep­tance of trans­gender people and non-binary iden­ti­ties in sport remains contro­ver­sial, and the tradi­tional binary in compe­ti­tion often leads to exclu­sion. It is ther­e­fore important to criti­cally scru­ti­nise exis­ting struc­tures and address where change is possible and neces­sary in order to promote an inclu­sive and respectful sporting envi­ron­ment. Raising aware­ness of gender diver­sity, non-hete­ro­nor­ma­tive life­styles and iden­ti­ties remains of central importance.

Forecast and outlook

Possible coun­ter­ar­gu­ments could be that the majo­rity still operate within tradi­tional gender boun­da­ries in the world of sport. However, the ques­tion goes beyond the pure aspect of gender

neutra­lity and gender sensi­ti­vity. Rather, the ques­tion is whether the prin­ci­ples of diver­sity and inclu­sion should be supported.

Mögliche Gegen­ar­gu­mente könnten sein, dass die Mehr­heit immer noch inner­halb der tradi­tio­nellen Geschlech­ter­grenzen in der Sport­welt agiert.

Die Frage geht jedoch über den reinen Aspekt von Gender­neu­tra­lität und Gender­sen­si­bi­lität hinaus. Es steht viel­mehr zur Diskus­sion, ob man die Grund­sätze der Viel­falt und Inte­gra­tion unter­stützen möchte.

Diversity and inclusion? Where does it start and where does it end?

The Couch by MVRDVPhoto: ©Daria Scagliola & Stijn Brakkee

Diver­sity starts where there is accep­tance that people are diffe­rent. Inclu­sion, on the other hand, begins where hete­ro­gen­eity is allowed to interact.

It becomes more diffi­cult to answer the ques­tion of where diver­sity and inclu­sion end. However, the boun­da­ries of these concepts are fluid and evolve with chan­ging social condi­tions. They could be considered obso­lete when inju­s­tice, discri­mi­na­tion and exclu­sion no longer exist — an idea­li­stic goal that can be inher­ently contra­dic­tory, as the decision to achieve it is subjec­tive.

The meanings of diver­sity and inclu­sion have changed over time. They always reflect a specific under­stan­ding of values. Diver­sity used to refer mainly to demo­gra­phic aspects such as origin, gender, reli­gion, and age. Today, these concepts encom­pass a broader range of charac­te­ristics, inclu­ding sexual orien­ta­tion, gender iden­tity, socioe­co­nomic status, physical and cogni­tive proces­sing patterns (neuro­di­ver­sity) and mental health.

Inter­sec­tion­a­lity, the reco­gni­tion of over­lap­ping expe­ri­ences that shape one’s own iden­tity and self-image, is also considered in the context of diver­sity. This topic is no longer prima­rily about inclu­ding more people from a homo­ge­neous, specific group that was previously not so strongly repre­sented.

Rather, it is important to reco­g­nise that there is multiple discri­mi­na­tion, which makes it neces­sary to create an appro­priate envi­ron­ment in which every person truly feels repre­sented as an indi­vi­dual. This process ques­tions estab­lished norms, unco­vers preju­dices and sheds light on unequal power struc­tures.

Points of criti­cism such as the fear of reverse discri­mi­na­tion or the use of diver­sity as an end in itself, which could prevent genuine inclu­sion, are part of the discus­sion.

Forecast and outlook

The under­stan­ding of diver­sity and inclu­sion varies depen­ding on the cultural back­ground. In a globa­lised and inter­con­nected world, however, these concepts are received inter­na­tio­nally. Both diver­sity and inclu­sion remain contro­ver­sial issues. Although it is an ongoing process, it does not always move in a linear fashion.

Authors

Anja Kirig

Future and trend rese­arch

Marcel Aberle

Mega­trends & trans­for­ma­tions

Photos

FREEP!K

Do you want more?

Sports grounds + stadia
Sports halls + arenas
Pools + well­ness
Outdoor
Design+ instal­la­tions
Schools + kinder­gar­tens

Your turn.

Intro­duce yourself

Your stage

DO YOU WANT TO PUBLISH YOUR PROJECT OR PRODUCT?

My post

Eye-Tracking

by | 15 Dec 2017 | Architecture & Social Media

Game-Changing

Eye-Tracking Studies Reveal
How We Actually See Architecture

Form follows function

While many archi­tects have long clung to the old “form follows func­tion” adage, form follows brain func­tion might be the motto of today’s adver­ti­sers and auto­ma­kers, who incre­asingly use high-tech tools to under­stand hidden human beha­viors, and then design their products to meet them (without ever asking our permis­sion!)

Biome­tric tools like an EEG (elec­troen­ce­pha­logram) which measures brain waves; facial expres­sion analysis soft­ware that follows our chan­ging expres­sions; and eye-tracking, which allows us to record “uncon­scious” eye move­ments, are ubiqui­tous in all kinds of adver­ti­sing and product deve­lo­p­ment today—beyond the psycho­logy or medical depart­ments where you might expect to see them. These days you’ll also find them installed at the beha­vi­oral rese­arch and user expe­ri­ence labs in busi­ness schools such as American Univer­sity in D.C. and Worcester Poly­technic Insti­tute (WPI) in Massa­chu­setts.

What happens when you apply a biome­tric measure like Eye-Tracking to archi­tec­ture? More than we expected…

Indeed, after running four pilot-studies looking at buil­dings in both city and suburb (New York City, Boston, Somer­ville and Devens, MA) since 2015, we think these tech­no­lo­gies stand to revo­lu­tio­nize our under­stan­ding of how archi­tec­ture impacts people and, in a first, allow us to predict human responses, inclu­ding things like whether people will want to linger outside a new buil­ding or, within frac­tions of a second, choose to flee. (There’s more on our first Eye-Tracking study in the cover story of Plan­ning Maga­zine, June, 2016.)

In sum, we believe once you “see” how we look at buil­dings, you’ll never look at archi­tec­ture the same way again. So, here are three unex­pected findings gathered from Eye-Tracking archi­tec­ture:

Author of text

Ann Sussman
Janice M. Ward

Photographs

Ann Sussman

Thanks to

  • Common Edge, the original place this article appears
  • Boston’s Insti­tute for Human-Centered Design
  • The Devens Enter­prise Commis­sion
  • Prof Justin B. Hollander and Hanna Carr ‘20, Tufts Univer­sity as a contri­bu­ting rese­ar­cher. His rese­arch and funding allowed two of the studies (NYC + Devens) to proceed
  • Dan Bartman, City of Somer­ville Plan­ning Depart­ment for inva­luable assis­tance and rese­arch support
  • For game-chan­ging tech­no­lo­gical tools many thanks to iMotions and 3M VAS and their staff for making this type of rese­arch possible.

  1. People ignore blank facades

Run even one Eye-Tracking study and this result will hit you on the head like a ton of bricks. Put it in red lights: People don’t tend to look at big blank things, or featur­e­less facades, or archi­tec­ture with four-sides of repe­ti­tive glass. Our brains, the work of 3.6 billion years of evolu­tion, aren’t set up for that. This is likely because big, blank, featur­e­less things rarely killed us. Or, put another way, our current modern archi­tec­ture simply hasn’t been around long enough to impact beha­viors and a central nervous system that’s deve­loped over millennia to ensure the species’ survival in the wild. From the brain’s visual perspec­tive, blank eleva­tions might as well not be there.

You can see this in the study above. It shows two views of NYC’s Stap­leton library, one with exis­ting windows, at right and, at left, one without them (a photo­shopped version we made of the same facade). The bright yellow dots repre­sent “fixa­tions” that show where eyes rest as they take in the scene in a 15-second interval; the lines between are the “saccades” that follow the move­ment between fixa­tions. On average, viewers moved their eyes 45 times per testing interval, with little to no conscious effort or aware­ness on their part, and no direc­tion on ours. In the image at left, without windows, test-takers more-or-less ignored the exte­rior, save for the doorway. This is not the case with the image at right. The photos below show heat maps which aggre­gate the viewing data of multiple indi­vi­duals. These maps, glowing brigh­test where people looked most, suggest how much fenestra­tion patterns matter: they keep people fixa­ting on the facade, provi­ding areas of contrast the eyes inna­tely seek and then stick to. Again and again, our studies found that buil­dings with punched windows (or symme­trical areas of high contrast) peren­ni­ally caught the eye, and those without, did not.

  1. Fixations drives exploration

Why does it matter where people look without conscious control? That’s the ulti­mate ques­tion. In the course of our rese­arch, we picked up a cogni­tive science mantra, “fixa­tions drive explo­ra­tion,” and learned that uncon­scious hidden habits, such as where our eyes “fixate” without conscious input, deter­mines where our atten­tion goes and that’s hugely signi­fi­cant. Why? Because uncon­scious fixa­tions in turn direct conscious acti­vity and beha­vior. No wonder Honda and GM use this tech­no­logy. No wonder adver­ti­sers of all stripes do too. They want to know where we look so they can manage our beha­vior, making certain an ad grabs atten­tion as intended, before it’s released. They want to manage our uncon­scious beha­vior so they get the conscious outcome they desire from our brains, (without having to lift a meta­pho­rical finger!)

And what about archi­tec­ture?  

Eye Tracking can help us untangle the frac­tion-of-a-second expe­ri­ences that drive our actions around buil­dings in ways we may never realize. To see how our “fixa­tions drive explo­ra­tion,” let’s take the scene above; at left is Davis Square in Somer­ville, MA, a dense resi­den­tial district near Cambridge, home to many colleges and busi­nesses. At right, the image shows a photo­shopped version of the same scene. In the past year we’ve asked more than 300 people at lectures where they’d rather stand and wait for a friend: in front of the blank buil­ding or in front of the buil­ding with the colorful Matisse-like mural. Amazingly—without even talking with one another—everyone picked the same place, stan­ding in front of the mural.  

Why?

Turns out eye tracking suggests some inte­res­ting answers. The heat map above indi­cates that the mural provides fixa­tion points to focus on; these give us a type of attach­ment we like and seem to need to feel at our best; without these connec­tions people appar­ently don’t know where to go—they get anxious—and so won’t select the blanker site. Amazing the power of fixa­tions to drive explo­ra­tion whether in ads or archi­tec­ture. (I guess it has to be this way since we only have one brain.)

  1. People look for people, continually

And finally, ironi­cally, the most important thing Eye Tracking studies of archi­tec­ture reve­aled to us had nothing to do with buil­dings at all. Instead it suggested how much our brain is hard­wired to look for and see people. We’re a social species and our percep­tion is rela­tional. In other words, it’s speci­fi­cally desi­gned to take in others. Eye-tracking studies bear this out, repea­tedly. Yes, archi­tec­ture matters, but from our brain’s perspec­tive, people matter more. No matter where they are.

We saw this eye tracking Boston’s famous Copley Square with its historic Trinity Church (c. 1877) and equally historic Hancock Tower (c.1976), which recently changed hands and is now called 200 Clarendon (see images above). In 2015, the tower featured a tempo­rary art instal­la­tion of a man stan­ding on a floa­ting barge. Guess where people looked?

If you chose the small silhou­ette of the guy, you’re right. Richard­so­nian Roma­nesque has its appeal, and there may be die-hard moder­nists out there, but when it comes to human bodies, that’s what your brain wants you to focus on. (See reddest heat map.) That’s where people went to look; other­wise, they barely gave the glass buil­ding a glance; it simply can’t provide fodder for focus from a brain’s 3.6 billion-year-old perspec­tive.

If there’s one all-encom­pas­sing conclu­sion, it’s this: we can only hope to save ourselves if we know what we are. Evolu­tion is real and we’re arti­facts of the process. Eye-tracking archi­tec­ture shows ancient algo­rithms direc­ting us even though we can’t perceive them. Archi­tec­ture that’s humane engages our animal nature acknow­led­ging our remar­kable history. In terms of how we take in the world, our ances­tors learned the hard way to imme­dia­tely look for areas of high contrast and other crea­tures, parti­cu­larly faces, and they passed the life-saving traits on to us. These beha­viors will not go away soon.

So we find ourselves today, modern man, riveted to looking at the silhou­ette of someone outside the 35th floor of a high-rise. It truly makes no sense, unless you consider where we came from and the struggle for survival that made us.

Ann Sussman
is an author, archi­tect and biome­tric rese­ar­cher. Her book Cogni­tive Archi­tec­ture, Desig­ning for How We Respond to the Built Envi­ron­ment (2015), co-authored with Justin B Hollander, won the EDRA award for rese­arch in 2016. More info at: annsussman.com and her blog, geneticsofdesign.com.

FIVE ANSWERS
  1. Please tell us about your top 5 sports faci­li­ties.
    There’s one sports arena that’s been part of my life forever: The Roman Colos­seum!  My mom found a print of it by Pira­nesi when I was a kid and we lived in Europe; it came back with us to the United States where she placed it in the living room; today that same print adorns my dining room. Answe­ring these ques­tions made me realize for the first time that a 2,000-year-old amphi­theater is the one buil­ding I’ve been looking at most of my life!
  2. Which archi­tects and buil­dings have left a lasting impres­sion on you? Why?
    The other buil­ding that defi­ni­tely left a lasting impres­sion on my brain is Palladio’s Villa Rotunda, or Villa Capra in Vicenza Italy. I fell in love with it in when first studying archi­tec­ture. I even took Palladio’s plans to a local baker when I got married for the design of my wedding cake! This buil­ding influenced the design of count­less other buil­dings around the world, inclu­ding in the U.S., The White House. And the Palla­dian facade of the American President’s home is today on U.S. currency (every $20 bill). I couldn’t under­stand why a country estate desi­gned for a wealthy, reti­ring Vatican cleric in the 16th century (a party pavi­lion !) could come to repre­sent American demo­cracy! So we eye tracked the villa — and got an intri­guing answer: In pre-atten­tive proces­sing (the first 3–5 seconds you look at some­thing) the villa suggests a face!  And because of our brain’s mamma­lian attach­ment wiring, no other image can grab us like that — and no other pattern ever will.
  3. What and whom do you consider as industry trends and trend­set­ters?
    Key industry trends in archi­tec­ture include the drive to sustaina­bi­lity, desig­ning to promote human health and well­ness and new findings in cogni­tive science which help us under­stand what our brain is set up to see. For more infor­ma­tion on the latter, please see our website: geneticsofdesign.com.
  4. What book should archi­tects in this industry abso­lutely read?
    I’d have to recom­mend the one I co-authored with Tufts Univer­sity professor Justin B. Hollander, Cogni­tive Archi­tec­ture, Desig­ning for How We Respond to the Built Envi­ron­ment (Rutledge, 2015), and one by a Nobel-prize winning neuro­sci­en­tist on why art works: Eric Kandel, The Age of Insight (2012). There’s also a good little book on the brain by Oxford Univer­sity Press: The Brain: A Very Short Intro­duc­tion, by Michael O’Shea.
  5. What is/was your favo­rite song to listen to while desig­ning?
    Favo­rite song to listen to while writing or meeting with others to discuss rese­arch ideas would have to be the buzz of a local cafe; the murmur of people talking and the clin­king of the coffee cups is somehow very soot­hing and gets me to think at my best.

Janice M. Ward 
is a writer, desi­gner, blogger and STEM advo­cate. She and Ann Sussman co-authored the cover story in Plan­ning Maga­zi­ne’s 2016 June issue: using eye tracking and other biome­tric tools to help plan­ners shape built envi­ron­ments. More info at acanthi.com and geneticsofdesign.com.

FIVE ANSWERS
  1. Please tell us about your top 5 sports faci­li­ties.
    As a native Bosto­nian I’m drawn to Fenway Park, which is listed as one of the 10 Most Historic North American Stadiums. It’s the local, senti­mental favo­rite. 
  2. Which archi­tects and buil­dings have left a lasting impres­sion on you? Why?
    For our 20th anni­ver­sary, my husband and I visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water. Breath­ta­king. Not comfy by today’s stan­dards, but amazing. Imagine a 5300 square foot house built over a water­fall complete with internal green­house and stairs leading down to the stream below.
  3. What and whom do you consider as industry trends and trend­set­ters?
    Archi­tec­ture should keep up with changes in tech­no­logy. Not just buil­ding tech­no­logy. Design schools should inte­grate Science, Tech­no­logy, Engi­nee­ring, Math (STEM) initia­tives inclu­ding neuro­sci­ence, biology, computer science and biome­tric tools to develop people-centric, data-driven envi­ron­ments.
  4. What book should archi­tects in this industry abso­lutely read?
    Tech­no­logy moves so fast, I tend to read online content in websites, blogs and magazines. Two favo­rites are Archi­tec­tural Recordand Dwell. The book I am curr­ently enjoying is “The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Commu­ni­cate” by Peter Wohl­leben.
  5. What is/was your favo­rite song to listen to while desig­ning?
    While writing, I often listen to Bach, Eliot Fisk or Andre Segovia. Gentle, instru­mental music inspires without distrac­tion.

Insta-Architecture

by | 2 Nov 2017 | Architecture & Social Media

Architects need Likes, too

 

Building with Social Media

by Katie Dabbs

Digitized beasts

We have evolved into digi­tized beasts capable of sending personal state­ments in a matter of seconds. Whether via images, posts, invites, and tweets, we have the ability to disse­mi­nate opinions and ideas — from the half-baked to the fully fledged — in a moment’s notice. We commu­ni­cate daily with audi­ences comprised of people we know and some we don’t, and, while many use it to dish out selfies, troll celebs, or express their very public infa­tua­tion with a favo­rite donut shop, I can’t help but consider how harve­s­ting these opinions can (and will) affect the prac­tice of design.

 

Norman Foster vs Bjarke Ingels

Along with the draf­ting board, gone are the days of glit­te­ring hand-sculpted models and hard­cover presen­ta­tion books. In is 3D prin­ting, Oculus Rift, rendered videos, and social media. Case in point: Rupert Murdoch’s media compa­nies, 21st Century and Fox, pushing aside Norman Foster, now 80, for the young parvenu Bjarke Ingels to design the fourth and final skyscraper at 2 World Trade. As Paul Gold­berger described in his recent Vanity Fair article, “This change signi­fies more than Oedipal rumblings in the archi­tec­tural world. It may say even more about the world of media, and not just Murdoch’s media.”

As a public rela­tions profes­sional having spent my short career working within archi­tec­ture firms, it’s my job to illus­trate to the media what actually goes into making a buil­ding. The craft, the mate­rials, the methods, the tech­no­logy, the cama­ra­derie, the part­ner­ships, the manpower. Social media gives us a powerful tool that consumer-driven compa­nies have jumped head­first into while design industry is playing catch up.

 

Kim Kardashian leads the way

“Twitter became my form of Google for a second,” said none other than social media monarch Kim Karda­shian in her recent, and some would say unex­pected, inter­view at the Re/code confe­rence. She’d ask ques­tions to her 34.7 million follo­wers — their review of movies, places to dine, what shade of pink a perfume bottle should be. Although her ques­tions seem trivial, she has proved the ability to gather prized brand insight in a matter of seconds.

Public opinion is playing a greater role in archi­tec­ture today. Enough scru­tiny, espe­ci­ally as it relates to public archi­tec­ture (think: conven­tion centers, stadiums, museums, airports), can change the course of projects. A quick Google search will show you the public outcry centered around the Frick Collection’s proposed expan­sion, which had considered repla­cing a prized garden on East 70th Street in Manhattan with an addition.The change proposed in Summer 2014 was recalled in June 2015 with the Frick’s promise to come up with a new plan, one that would spare the beloved garden and respond to public concern.

Express yourself!

Public opinion is powerful. While the average public archi­tec­ture project takes years, thou­sands of man-hours, and typi­cally hundreds of millions of dollars, it signi­fi­cantly impacts the commu­nity it occu­pies. Public archi­tec­ture can change people’s lives for better or worse. It is ther­e­fore neces­sary to ensure these struc­tures maxi­mize ROI — soci­ally, econo­mic­ally, and emotio­nally.

Because it’s impos­sible for archi­tects and desi­gners to correctly anti­ci­pate every poten­tial wart that could plague a project and cause problems down the road, harnes­sing the opinions of ever­yday people is one way to cure poten­tial mala­dies before they rear their ugly heads. Clients who commis­sion public archi­tec­ture are savvier than ever; they under­stand what design brings to the table and push desi­gners to expe­ri­ment and take risks.

They also yearn for public dialogue with the end users who will be using their spaces. Making the crea­tive process behind the design more visible can surface neces­sary criti­ques before a single brick is laid. Increased public aware­ness can shed light on the problems that our buil­dings could and should be solving but may not be in their current itera­tions.

This is where social media comes into play. It’s never been easier to gather and analyze the opinions of critical masses of people, and it’s become quite common for orga­niza­tions from clot­hing retailers to consumer product compa­nies to survey social media users. Then, they use this data to inform their decis­ions. There’s a certain honesty that social media, as opposed to tradi­tional survey tools, engen­ders.

On social media, people feel empowered to express them­selves without any sort of filter. Some­times users cross the line by spewing a polemic or getting down­right nasty, but, more often than not, they provide brut­ally honest and incisive feed­back — giving inte­rested parties a better under­stan­ding of what the commu­nity expects from the world around them.

 

Architects need Likes, too

Archi­tects and desi­gners can and should use social media to achieve similar results. Our profes­sion has long relied on data points and various metrics to measure the impact that design has on its users. Now, we can use social media to surface opinions and criti­cisms of designs-in-the-making and completed spaces in need of a rehab. Insta­gram and Face­book provide commu­nity feed­back in a form of a “like” or posi­tive comment. Pinte­rest illus­trates what is truly popular and what isn’t via “pins.”

Social media has the power to eradi­cate the days of tedious data coll­ec­ting: there are focus groups galore available online. Stuck in a rut? Need an opinion on a mate­rial you’re contem­pla­ting using? A façade option you’re about to pitch a client? Need to under­stand how users are inter­ac­ting with their spaces? Dish the ques­tion to your follo­wers. Allow them to react. Convey the opinion to your client. Charge ahead.

 

With mind and heart

I think Iwan Baan, heralded the most-wanted archi­tec­tural photo­grapher by The Wall Street Journal, has the best social media stra­tegy in the design industry, to date. If you’re unfa­mi­liar with his work, he is indis­pensable to the likes of Rem Kool­haas, Zaha Hadid, and Herzog and de Meuron. His photo­graphs are instantly dispensed to maga­zines and news­pa­pers that fight for the exclu­sive, but his Insta­gram account reveals a side of archi­tec­ture that his polished pictures don’t. His photos take you behind the scenes. Footage of the places he visits, the people he meets during his travels, and the buil­dings he shoots, sans the gloss. Baan takes us on his journey that reso­nates with the minds and hearts of his follo­wers. In these stolen moments, people connect with archi­tec­ture.

My inner Miss Cleo says that this is the way of the future. This is how we will build buil­dings. We will poll our fans, let the public in, take their tempe­ra­ture, connect them with their buil­dings before they are built, and take them on the design journey with us. We will make this multi­faceted and incre­dibly nuanced process simple and possibly supe­rior. We will use it to uncover the best solu­tions. More infor­ma­tion yields more educated decis­ions. We will gauge real-time reac­tions before pres­sing on. Our audi­ence will help guide us.

Newsletter?

Vielen Dank, das hat geklappt.

Newsletter?

Vielen Dank, das hat geklappt.