‘Humane Design for Homeless Populations’ or HDHP is a humane public design project in collaboration with residents of Dufferin Grove Park. Project objectives include 1) prototyping public design concepts meant to ease and even save lives of the homeless populations occupying public spaces, 2) using speculative design to encourage discussion and social reform surrounding urban homelessness, specifically how they’re treated in and by public space 3) accompanying realized designs with policy recommendations and design futures addressing inequities and deficits facing a severely marginalized community.
Below is a work-in-progress HDHP mind map.
HDHP began as a conceptual design project for a Critical Theory class, addressing a wicked problem in Toronto in late 2023. Since then, empathetic and speculative design have become a focus of mine, particularly as they pertain to public space.
Below are initial HDHP concept designs that would inspire my later realization of the project.
A thesis project requires a far more directed scope than ‘confronting homelessness in Toronto’ with conceptual designs. So, I’ve decided to work within a specific public park – Dufferin Grove, with a specific encampment group to codesign speculative solutions to a couple very immediate problems faced by their community.
Below are initial sketches of these design concepts.
It’s my view that public spaces like Dufferin Grove Park can better accommodate people with no other option but to occupy them. I want to design a park bench that doubles as an emergency sleeping pod and a wireless charging port, as speculative public space designs (prototypes of what could be). Ideas like these are powerful because they not only have the potential to ease or save lives, but they are also opportunities to interrogate and challenge societal power structures and belief systems. How? Through visual cues and messaging. We are, after all, heavily influenced by our environments. That includes places and things, not just other people. I want you to think about what kind of message you would put on a public sleeping pod or on a charging station installed in Dufferin Grove Park. What should these design interventions tell the public?
For best results in codesign, I’ve created low fidelity, scale models of the sleeping pod and public charging station to be used as canvases for participant ideation…
