GE SONG

The garden system is an interactive design project, working in a group with Safehaven clients. Safehaven is an organization that provides care for young people with profound disabilities. Some Safehaven clients lack mobility, or are nonverbal, or both. A new Safehaven condo facility is to be built near the Islington subway station, and clients older than 18 years will have the choice to live there. Our job is to design something for the clients to help them be better involved in the new community, and, importantly, to achieve ‘reverse inclusiveness’. That is, to help them realize their personal value, and feel empathy for others. We tried to create a better community for them. 

We did real location research, face to face interviews with Safehaven staff and the clients' parents. During this stage, we found that the greatest obstacle between Safehaven’s clients and other people in the community is that many people see their disabilities only and look at them through this lens. This makes it difficult for Safehaven clients to be involved in the new living environment around the Safehaven future site. Moreover, after they age out from the Safehaven program, they lack meaningful activities and long term stable connections with the people around them. Many Safehaven clients are under financial pressure due to the cost of medical therapy. They hope to find their personal value and a sense of belonging in the new community. On the community side, the community needs to be educated in proper ways to understand, and communicate with the clients, in order to respect them. In our design, we tried to find the balance and make it beneficial for both parties.

The comparison map of the community and existing Safehaven site has some similarities in functional facilities. The new community is a great residential place with abundant amenities and a large residential area.

Here is the hypothetical persona of a typical community member according to our research. And then we built the journey map about this community member and Safehaven client to find out some insights.

We organized their unmet needs and assets to help us have ideas about the system to be beneficial for both of them.

The link below provides a full version of the system map as well as storyboards.

https://issuu.com/3161743/docs/id4_final_storyboard_version

We chose to build a garden and kitchen system in this project, which serves as an intermediate between stakeholders and Safehaven clients. They help and benefit each other regularly at every part of the ongoing system cycle.

Community member:

Community members could get to know the lives of people with disabilities. In our system, parents and children have the chance to learn how to communicate with and understand Safehaven clients. It is a natural way for them to develop relationships with their neighbors. This is also a way of doing charity by volunteering. On top of that, community members could get a cheap and fine meal and drinks made from Safehaven garden’s ingredients, which is beneficial for people with lower income or office workers who do not have time to cook.

Safehaven clients:

Safehaven clients are endowed with regular tasks and activities. Through this system, they learn to experience nature and the power of life. It is also a great therapeutic method for them.

Overall, this Garden and Kitchen system encourages the development of interactions and relationships which solve the unmet needs of both community members and SH client --- the feeling of loneliness and isolation. This also provides them personal value while they are helping each other.

This project was chosen to be in OCAD U’s DesignTO exhibition in January 2020, sponsored by Scotia Bank.