‘Tell them and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.’ Drawing on the famous words of Benjamin Franklin, the workshop began with Brazilian architect Guto Requena taking us through some of his interactive installations. Next, participants worked on ideas to engage people and lure them into sustainable behaviour.
By Loretta So
One of Requena’s projects featured customizable lights on a building facade that were controlled by an app. Another installation was a building that could project a selfie onto the entire facade. Both projects embrace technology and user interaction.
Starting with Requena’s illustration of how people interact and engage with architecture, the workshop then explored how we can get people to connect with larger global issues. Sustainability was the topic we chose to focus on in this workshop.
Participants discussing target groups
Know your audience
To get people to care you need to engage them, but first you need to know how to do that. The latter part of the workshop was dedicated to the ‘how’. Divided into groups, we were given a target audience and discussed extensively who they were and how we might engage with them and get them to care about sustainability.
My group took teenagers as a target audience. We compiled a list of general characteristics of teenagers: tech savvy and social-media savvy, influential amongst their peers, easily taken by fads and cheap trends, to name just a few. One idea generated from this character profile was to use apps to make sustainability more trendy and accessible.
Collaborating with strangers is big fun
Simple yet powerful
This relatively simple exercise could have positive repercussions. More than the content, it was inspiring to see how the power of a few strangers’ creativity in a short space of time could generate so many avenues to make a person care and ultimately take action.