Design thinking applied to urban planning
via Metroplis Magazine …
Mary Foyder/courtesy IDEO
IDEO’s Smart Spaces group takes on ‘urban planning’ by applying it’s user-focused methods on capturing the spirit of a Kansas City neighborhood.
IDEO immersed themselves in “the Vine,” applying the multidisciplinary method they bring to nearly all their projects, whether bathroom cleaners or hotel rooms. They hosted “whine and dines” (focus-group dinners), walked the streets, ate in the restaurants, did historical research, took photographs, and interviewed dozens of people about the neighborhood, sometimes on videotape. Part anthropology (with IDEO’s trained anthropologists), part site exploration (with IDEO’s trained architects), part documentary filmmaking (with IDEO’s trained media artists), their approach is to seek the qualitative essence of the community from the perspective of the community.
