[This project was completed with Zohra Abbas and Deven Kara]
This project explores the ideas of happiness in the urban environment and what residents value in the urban environment that improves their happiness. Using the definitions of happiness as satisfaction and wellbeing, we explored how the resident would be able to involve themselves with the planning process of their neighbourhood. Our approach to this was to explore a bottom-up approach to planning, where a platform would be created for the residents to use to convey the values held towards their own happiness in the urban environment.
We ultimately designed a game that would allow the residents to design their neighbourhood as they would want it, within a curated set of boundaries, which would allow us to understand the residents happiness, as well as to provide a comparison to the existing research on urban happiness, grounded mainly within the Pillars of Happiness by the Happiness Research Institute.
We also used it as an opportunity to examine the platform as an alternative to the planning approach. We initially intended to distribute the game throughout the site we had chosen, but due to the current pandemic, it evolved into a proof of concept and how it may be implemented at a neighbourhood and even city scale.
