A Collaboration With SMC IXD and Grand Park
Trance Plant
An Interactive Garden THAT COMBINES PLANTS WITH MUSIC
Grand Park is coined as being "The Park for Everyone" and provides those who visit with a natural landscape that allows them to take a break from the busy lifestyle of Downtown Los Angeles. Grand Park works in conjunction with the music center and their overall goal is to bring the community together.
In their pursuit to better serve the community, they reached out to SMC IXD to get a design thinking perspective on how to bring the community together in a way that would allow visitors to take a memorable experience home with them.
The events the park hosts is what often gets visitors from other parts of Los Angeles to make the rare trip to the park.
Grand Park takes pride in the plant life featured throughout the park.
We looked towards Grand Parks roots: nature. We decided to build an interactive connection to plants via music, inspired by Grand Parks connection to The Music Center, that remained local users and far away visitors of the beauty in their backyard.
During this collaboration I worked with Rosie Dominguez who served as our project manager. I conducted user research via survey data and on sight interviews. I also served as head of design and developed the prototype, style guide, and branding.
Our final concept impact allows Grand Park and it's users to embrace the vast nature they have at their finger tips. We were able to take into consideration Grand Parks connection to The Music Center, and provide a new avenue for them to show case the Music Centers work. We were also able to provide Grand Park with a new connection to DubLab all while keeping nature at the forefront of this project through out it's conception.
During the kick off meeting, our stakeholders made their needs for this project known, and coined the phrase "A Slice of Grand Park" for users to take home. They let use know they wanted this project to be something users did not have to leave at the park, but something they could take with them even as simple as a story.
"We want to be able to engage visitors both remotely and physically."
Our solution had to meet a need in the physical space, but also had to find a way to engage visitors remotely.
"[Audience] engagement will bring information back to us."
Engaging park visitors can help facilitate gathering demographic data.
"The plant labels throughout the park are a metaphor for Angelos."
The plants in the park and where they come from are important to Grand Park and their visitors.
The events the park hosts is what often gets visitors from other parts of Los Angeles to make the rare trip to the park.
Immersive experiences and novel events are welcome by Grand Park Visitors.
People have began exploring new ways to connect with nature via tech, but it s often really expensive for them to do so.
We started our pre prototype process by looking at other parks, businesses, and immersive experiences that have set out to concur a similar goal. Click through to learn more information about each location / business.
The aim of our secondary research was to find sources that gave us insights on how we could build an experience for Grand Park that changes how users interact with the plants there. We used these insights to inform the next steps in our design process of reaching out to users.
Even though bio-sonic feedback devices that plats can use to make sounds are pseudo science, there could still be a practical method to getting plants to play chill music for user relaxation.
Gardens are one of the few places that have the ability to elicit multiple sensory experiences, with sensory gardens in mind how could we design an experience that highlights multiple senses.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art partnered with Verizon to produce a series of virtual art and gaming experiences, based on their collections, which 4G or 5G smartphone users can participate in from home.
Experience parks, aim to create a physical or digital fully immersive experience and are beginning to rise in popularity.
We looked to online forms to get an idea of the thoughts users who would have interests of a new experience at Grand Park would have, and learn more about them in regards to Grand Park.
These users have a love for gardens and would be interested in an interactive garden experience.
The comment section of this app, specifically when focused on plants holds a lot of user knowledge and shows that users are interested in plant education.
These users are interested in gardens specifically in SoCal and may make a great pool for testing participants.
During a tour of Grand Park, we made specific observations with help from information provided by stakeholders.
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Locals tend to use the park as an extension of their backyard, but those who are further away from Grand Park only choose to come to the park when an event or experience is compelling enough to get them to make the trip.
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The plant tags in the park are a metaphor for many Los Angeles stories, by telling a story of how plants can come from all over the world, and eventually find a comfortable home in Los Angeles. This story, like the plants are important to Grand Park and visitors.
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Grand Park is known for being a place children and adults can come to learn more information about the world and Los Angeles history.
In a survey targeted to Grand Park visitors found via an Instagram takeover, and Facebook we learned that 60% of our users visit their local park on a weekly basis and more are aware of at least one plant music device.
We conducted on site user interviews with the Grand Park crew and visitors do get insight into what motivates people to visit Grand Park, as well as some of their pain points and inspirations.
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"It is Interesting because people come down from all walks of life...It sort of ties Los Angeles together."
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"People appreciate Grand Park mostly for the nature."
Dublab enthusiastically agreed to partner with us to curate sounds for the app. In addition, Rob, the owner of The Haus Plant Mobile Greenhouse, loves to take his business to different parts of LA to show people the joy of plants and having them in their home and would be happy to do that at Grand Park.
“There is something in the air now about immersive should and there are technologies out there that can really be applied in interesting ways”
“I second Ale’s enthusiasm. This sounds exciting!”
“If people can't come to my store, maybe I can come to them.”
We provided a full overview of our concept in it's current state to stakeholders before moving forward to further prototype.
We created a Gantt Chart to map the goal timeline for the full implementation of Trance Plant at Grand Park.
In the future, we would like Grand Park to consider a Greenhouse addition to the TrancePlant concept, it could host plants not typically native to Los Angeles, and give users the chance to learn about plant life from around the globe. We imagine the structure to not take too much space within the park, and stand approximately 10 foot tall and 16 feet in diameter.
Plant lovers around bound to be interested in this concept, and will ultimately gain from being able to learn more about plants through Trance Plant.
Music enthusiasts will gain a new way to practice their craft and will be able to share their creations with peers and Grand Park.
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Within Grand Park, the physical component would be a QR code that users scan to unlock new plant sounds. The QR codes could sit on the plant tags that exist within the park, or would sit on tags next to the plant they correspond to.
A mobile application that allows users to scan QR codes to unlock sounds from their local interactive garden and use those sounds to easily produce music.
Even if an idea seems like it might be out of the norm, a strong plan and sense of purpose can make the idea come to life.
This project was conducted as a team of two, and through the process we were able to work with each others strengths and weaknesses. Being in tune with your partners and being aware when they need help can ultimately lead to a lot getting done even with a small group.
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