Encouraging Mindfulness Through Design
Why This Topic?
In our recent studio project for Environments design, we were challenged to think about creating a user experience that changes over time.
I started thinking about this process in two different ways — the environment itself changes which causes the experience to change, or the user of the environment changes and causes their perception of the environment to change. I became increasingly interested in the second topic, and the idea of user growth, and growing out of spaces. This growth is often what makes products go obsolete and if we are able to create and design products/experiences/environments that grow with their users, we will be able to create more sustainable systems as a whole.
The actual topic of the project was left to our discretion, so I began to think about topics that I could really see myself researching, becoming an expert on, and designing for with passion. Recently, I have been on a self-improvement kick, trying to figure out how to work to improve my awareness of myself, and my emotions. I believe that becoming more aware of our emotions and accepting of our emotions will allow us to function better in our day to day, and overall create more meaningful and functional relationships with others.
However, the methods that I have tried thus far to become more in tune/in control of my own emotions have been unfruitful — journaling, yoga, therapy all have fallen through for me upon being in college. However, I have lately been attempting to practice the concept of mindfulness. With the assistance of the Headspace app, I have been slowly working to become more mindful through meditation, but despite the strong design of the app, I have been unable to commit to actually using it. So I wanted to think about how I could create a physical space/environment that encourages mindfulness, something that grows with the user.
The Design Problem
How can I create a physical space that encourages the user to become more mindful of themselves, by being more present in their present state, and therefore more in tune with their emotions, and thoughts?
While Headspace does an incredible job with the medium that it is within, the main tool that they utilize is sound, engaging with the user through guided meditation. They rely very little on any visuals and depend on creating a connection with their users through the heavily researched and well-designed meditations suited for multiple scenarios and situations.
Therefore I want to bring about the process of being mindful to a more physical state, engage the user through multiple senses: sound, touch, visual. All these elements can come together to form a full sensory experience that will encourage the user to be more present in the current moment — ground themselves in their current moment, which is the main purpose of mindfulness.
Looking to Examples that Already Exist
There are multiple mediums through which mindfulness already manifests into our lives, and taking qualities of these activities and situations can work to inform me about what I hope to achieve with this project.
Group Yoga/Meditation
There are a good number of apps that exist currently that work to teach their users basic yoga techniques. However the more common form that yoga manifests in is typically group classes at a gym or specifically a yoga studio.
Benefits
- Guidance with a trained instructor
- Not as self-directed, have other people also holding you accountable
- Group motivation in group classes
- Physically exerting as well
- Strong human connection to other people in the space with you
Cons
- Need to go to a class, so specific schedule, can be hard to incorporate into your day
- A good class/teacher each user connects to can be hard to find, many classes will not appeal to a certain group of people, and finding one that works for everyone can be difficult
- General lack of ease of accessibility
Mindfulness Apps
Headspace is just one of the many apps that exist out there that are working to make their users more mindful and grounded.
Benefits
- Easy accessibility- can be downloaded on basically everybody’s phones
- Easy access- do not need a specific time or place to access the app
- Very versatile, can be used by nearly everybody, small learning curve on actually learning from the app
- Able to see your own progress on most apps, which shows user growth and commitment
Cons
- Lack of human connection- try their best with the voice of the app, humanizing it but there is still an inherent disconnect — not sure how to solve this
- Lack of accountability- so easy to just have the app, but whether or not the user will actually use it is much more flighty, there isn’t a strong feeling of commitment or connection
- Lack of urgency- the ease of access almost makes it something people do not feel the need to do everyday, because it is something they can do at anytime anyways
- Phone is inherently distracting- the medium that it is on, is one that we get so frequently distracted by anyways, its one purpose isn’t this task, so can go on phone, end up opening something else, will defeat purpose of the task to begin with.
Journaling
Letting out any negative/venting emotions onto paper has been shown to be incredibly helpful and cathartic for people, and journaling has also been shown to be a medium that really helps people express mindfulness.
Benefits
- individually determined/customizable
- Very free in structure, but clear in task, just vent and come to terms with your emotions
- If you keep feeling the same issue again and again, writing it out will eventually cause it to go away
Cons
- lack of accountability-hard for people to start and stay committed to journaling
- Lack of guidance- for people that already have a hard time coming to terms with their emotions, just writing them out may not be productive/something that they can do easily
- Time consuming- people are likely unwilling to make a good amount of time in their day to journal out their feelings
The Ideation Phase
With all my sources of inspiration in place, I wanted to begin to create a new solution which took the benefits of the above methods and combined them into a new group of solutions.
Solution 1: The Mindfulness Mat
For this solution, I would be taking the main principles of mindfulness apps and physicalizing them into a space- a mat that the users can meditate on that has the users become more aware of their physical space and being.
The mat itself would be something the users would be able to use in their own homes. It would have technology built into it, which would coordinate alongside the meditation audio that would come within the mat as well. So the mat would utilize touch, sound, and visuals to connect the user to their space, which expands on the benefits provided by just an app.
Solution 2: The Mindfulness Room
For this solution, I want to create a more immersive experience in a room that depends on sound location, and echolocation. A technique that is used in mindfulness is training the mind to focus on the present moment. Creating environments that require the brain to focus on the physicality of the space, will promote a mindfulness moment in that space.
The room will be a space large enough for multiple people to practice at the same time. The main focus of the space will be echolocation, so multiple speakers will be placed through the room, and users task will be to focus on the location of the source of the sound. In addition, it would be a group instructed class, with an instructor that guides the user through meditation exercises as well.
Solution 3: The Mindfulness Pod
This solution would be a pod that the user could sit in and relax in their own way. Essentially the space would just be a comforting area for them to practice their own ideas of meditation/mindfulness.
Solution 4: The Mindfulness Park
With this solution, I wanted to create a more natural space that would allow people to feel as though they are entering a space in which community of people are all present in the place for the same goal, to achieve mindfulness. The park will have certain stations/places dedicated to specific tasks that encourage a person to be more mindful. I also was considering adding in a path with specific mindful questions on the steps that the users can look to for prompts. I want to be sure to incorporate a teaching element into the park.
Choosing a Solution
After working through the pros and cons of my potential solutions, I realized that I really wanted to maintain certain aspects from some of my solutions, and rework a final solution that composes of elements of each possible solution. The primary thing that I realized though, was that I wanted to avoid incorporating too much technology into my solutions, as technology is one of the main reasons as to why we lose our sense of mindfulness in the first place. I also realized I wanted to emphasize the creation of a community around this topic.
So, I decided to proceed with the creation of the Mindfulness Park.
The first question I asked myself when beginning this project was — how will the mindfulness park be different from a normal park? But then I had to stop and ask myself- what is a normal park?
Understanding Park Architecture + Design
To begin thinking about the steps that I would take when designing the park, I looked at the manner in which large parks are designed, specifically parks that are notably famous and changing for the structure of a place.
I like the idea of creating an isolated place in an urban space that really promotes the mindfulness aspect of getting away from distractions — something central to cities and such. This is why I began looking at a park that is known to be so notably different from its surrounding area — Central Park.
Much of the research around this topic had a lot to do with the specific location of the park, and the context of New York specifically. The actual context and location of my park itself do not matter, so much as the actual content in the park itself.
Creating the Park Content
So I spent some more time, working through the exact goals that I want to accomplish with the creation of the park.
My primary goal is to create a public park in which people can easily practice mindfulness, in a manner that is prompted by the elements that are in the park as well as in the manner that the park is made itself.
Central elements I want to think about when designing the park are
- Prompting questions that cause people to be present in the moment are incorporated in the park in some way
- Specific tasks/places are developed with a specific purpose in mind (maybe like stations)
- Engaging all of the people’s senses within the space (except for taste probably)
- Create a sense of community within the place, other people are at this location for the same purpose as you, which creates a feeling of accountability
Breaking Down the Space into Stations
Since there are so many different techniques used to practice mindfulness, I wanted to create separate stations that narrow down on each technique so that each one individually was more effective. Initially I focused on creating 5 different stations — each focusing on a different physical sense.
Reworking the Stations
After spending some time reflecting on the purposes on each station, I realized that the stations needed some reworking. Some of the senses will be implicit throughout the entire process of experiencing the park — such a sight and smell. In addition, the specific activities associated with the places are not as related to the sense as I had hoped. For example, for my sight station — I was creating a large scale Zen Garden, but the space could turn into a chaotic playground, not a space for mindfulness.
So I reduced the number of stations to 3 stations — one focused on breathing, one focused on sound, and one focused on feeling. Additionally, I want to play more with the idea of using elevation amongst the stations, to create more isolation amongst the different stations. I was also inspired by the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, where they create different sections by the trees, which feels more immersed in nature.
New Layout for Park
Breathing Station/Entrance
The most crucial part of mindfulness is considered to be mindful breathing. This process is internal and allows the user to ground themselves in something as concrete as their consistent in and out breath, so this is where I want the user to start. In order to keep the space one that will allow the user to have different experiences each time they come visit it, I want to create different breathing exercises, that can be updated overtime. There will be 3 stations to begin with, so if the user wants to spend more time focusing on their breath, they can with different exercises.
The setting itself is around a pond. The sound of running water has been studied to invoke meditative states for people. In addition, there will be reeds and tall grass along the edges of the ponds, which will sway with the natural wind in the space, something I still want to leave open to the nature around it.
Feeling Station
The second station really emphasizes the creation of a connection between the actual ground that a person walks on and the person themselves. I want to bring attention to the fact that we go from place to place with just the destination in mind, not the actual journey. One aspect of the journey that is important is the actual path that is walked on — so I am bringing those textures into our focus. Focusing on the feeling of the material on the feet of people, as well as raising it up onto the walls to make the space more immersive.
Hearing Station
The third station emphasizes mindful listening. In our day to day lives we tend to block out the external sounds around us, but at this station, I want this to be the person’s focus. The sounds themselves are dependent on nature’s ambient sounds, so I want this station to be the highest station, so that it is more immersed in the trees, with more animals. The space itself will be lined with benches, made in the curving pattern seen above to create an interesting distribution of space, and interesting moments of privacy as well as more open space.
Connecting the Stations
To make the park feel like a completely immersive place, the user will first be greeted with a set of stairs that take the user to the first station, the hearing station. The stairs themselves will have typographic elements engraved into them, setting up the user’s mind to a mindful state. Then the user will progress through the stations, slowly making the journey downwards. The first station they will interact with is the hearing station. The next is the feeling station, and the final is the breathing station. This order causes the user to first create a connection with their external environment, then the environment and themselves, and finally, just to focus in on themselves. Then once the user is finished with this experience, they enter the outside world again.
The Guidebook
The guidebook will be given to the user when they enter the space, and serves to guide the user through the space with specific tasks and activities. Each exercise also has the user tally each time their mind wanders from the specified task, as one of the goals of mindfulness is being able to control the mind. The final pages also have the user reflect on their experience, so they can compare those pages overtime and see their own progress.
Perspective Drawings of the Spaces
