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Resources

network of skill-sharing and hobby groups for older people https://www.u3a.org.uk/about

hostile public space

crucially, the treatment of unhoused people, and how that also trickles out to everyone else
on car supremacy and walkability
monumentual architecture
Built environment affects autistics beyond need for isolated sensory rooms, we need more consideration in general public space to allow us to be in it rather than escape it. Factors of the built environment can also dictate social expectations and affect behaviour of others, clear procedure, affordances and signage is crucial
benches
- deliberately uncomfortable design, often entirely unusable
- cruel anti-sleeping measures
- disadvantages many already disadvantaged people
  - homeless people
  - disabled people
  - pregnant people
  - elderly people
  - young children
  - those caring for young children
- lack of seating at many bus stops, those that do have seating have inadequate seating, and people who use buses are more likely to be the already disadvantaged groups mentioned above
- Benches as a haven for the stressed, anxious, autistic, etc, scouting location
kinda opposite of this is the public safety measures built into environments such as flood prevention and bollarding with planters and artworks (or just actual bollards)

Resources

Monuments To Guilt, interactive virtual installation on exclusionary design (downloadable)(online)

public transport

Notes

notable reasons cars are used over public transport (excluding cost):
- privacy
- carrying your own stuff
- being together
- accessibility
- convenience
- last-mile routes
- preferred routes
- driving for sport and leisure
- comfort/safety/security, psychological factors
- short distances
- we have extensive road networks already
- large and awkward freight
- motorhomes and travelling lifestyles
solutions:
- most of these can be solved with funding and efforts going towards green automated public services that self-co-ordinate with a degree of separation and a degree of choice
- think land-ferry, rail-car
- accessibility by default
- driving for sport and leisure can remain on dedicated sites as with eg rallies, motor racing, bike sports. Cars for hobbies, vanity and collecting can remain.
yet to find an answer
- psychological factors - factors of owning your own safe space and/or escape route (unless individual ‘pods’ are still owned personally and just interface well - but equity issues remain in this model eg high cost may be associated, and youth rights affected)
- short distances
  - a general accessibility issue in that ‘walkable’ routes are not walkable for everybody but public transport tends not to serve these distances. Solutions are few and far between, personal electric vehicles for one are difficult/expensive to access (think mobility scooter) and tend to have complex rules of use (think e-scooters)
- extensive road networks left just to large freight?
- motorhomes

Resources

https://railwaydesign.xyz/

low tech

against forced progressivism and tech for tech’s sake
prioritising the system working as intended for collective and individual goals rather than over-focusing on using a specific tool or technology

slow tactics as electrical metaphor, as a “relation to technical/material/electrical procedures, or as a conscious act of mindfully lowering, balancing, and re-orienting the intensity of the (electric) current, consciously stabilizing the relationship between the (electrical) input and the output, and thus, to some extent, taking control of this current.” (Smolicki, 2017)

alternative display of data
alternative peripherals
sustainable methods of power and storage

https://specialprojects.studio/project/paper-phone/

more sustainable tech

Notes

TODO
Designing for Sustainability by Tim Frick
‘neobrutalist web design’
why ‘always up’? not everything needed always. not always up
- “challenge the holy grail of ‘uptime’” solar website

Resources

better infrastructure

Notes

no cars - mass public transport and last-mile transport
need for better local waste triage
- reduce mental load on the consumer, ‘out of your hands’ with an actual guarantee of sustainable reuse and recycling
  - but also more direct, in-community waste management with consumer involvement as service for community
more public toilets, accessible and public use
similar small public conveniences
smart grids for mass energy management, but also provision for self-managed isolated energy production

community-owned infrastructure

Context

I am pro-public-ownership of all infrastructure, but my experience aligns more with goals to bring tech/network/web infrastructure to local communities so the notes here will likely reflect that.

Notes

meet a community where they are, design for wide range of technical abilities
- Building computers, printers, wifi hotspots, peripherals, servers, etc, and digital infrastructure from low tech, could be making use of funding allocated to bridging digital divide
- working from existing emergent groupings who may have constructed infrastructure of varying quality and usefulness already. Think community Facebook pages or the Nextdoor app for hyperlocal communities