Personal Project Reflection

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The Auckland Transport project working to improve multi modal travel on Dominion Road is now officially concluded.

I made a real effort at the beginning of the project to talk to local shop owners and explore the corridor multiple times at night to understand and grasp the attitude and environment we were designing for. More importantly I wanted to understand how people felt travelling around Dominion Road at night, and what their pains were.

Despite keeping an open mind, and conceptualizing for different focus areas like way-finding, I now realize I was always going to end up addressing safety at night on Dominion Road. From my first visit to Dominion Road I noticed the substantial change of mood between day and night, especially on the side streets. I do not regret following my gut feelings, I was the only one in the class targeting safety and I think this paid off being the most prominent issue in retrospect. I read up into psychology, and found sone really interesting insights into how to make people feel less vulnerable.

As for my response to the opportunity I identified, I never expected that my final proposal would be anything like the Sentinel Lighting System. I started out with some far more complex ideas which were initially rejected by the clients, looking back I probably gave in too easily and did not fight back enough against the practical and cost effective restraints the client held close. I hated having my ideas shut down, so I took parts of these radical ideas and took them to multiple industry lighting experts.

Once my proposal as refined down to a retrofitted footpath light, I was concerned this solution was far too basic, I thought was this even worth designing? But as the case is so often, good design is simple design. And my proposal's purpose is simple, but its effective in addressing a major issue on the side streets of Dominion Road that deters locals and visitors from getting out of their vehicles and using multi modal travel to enjoy Dominion Road.

I was actually surprised how much design and consideration I had to include, it didn't feel like such a basic idea anymore and I enjoyed working around the various challenges I faced - big or small - for example angling up my designs "wings" to provide more solar coverage and remove dirt, to exploring the perceptions of how people may react to light. I had a fun exploring a range of skills an industrial designer may use - sketching, photoshop, digital sketching, prototyping and of course human centered design methods interacting with my stakeholders.

Therefore I'm very happy I chose a simple purpose to design around, and I believe I executed it well with a lot of detail given the six week project scope. My proposal and chosen direction were validated in the final stages of my project when I met with locals on Halston Road, who explained to me the issues they had at night that my solution addressed - this was the most rewarding part of the project to physically hear that I had come up with something that would be of great benefit to whom I was designing for.

This project paid off, but if I were to redo it again I would look to continue some of my earlier concepts including the smart street furniture system I presented in my initial pitch. The idea was that the streetlights and individual furniture pieces would provide personalised services to individuals needs wirelessly, such as instant seating, audio directions or reactive increased lighting intensity for example. These systems are being implemented overseas, and there is smart lighting systems created by Huawei being implemented currently. Such a system would have worked well in conjunction with the new light rail system if it is implemented.

Smart Street lighting is a potential direction I may take my solution in if I continue the AT project in my final year project.