Spatial Collapse: Designing for Emergent Culture
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic spaces has led to a spatial collapse. It may feel like all is lost, but Tricia argues that if we look back to previous moments in history of spatial collapses, we learn that they always produce new ways of thinking that would’ve never been possible before. In each moment, entirely new culture is created. New systems, economies, and tools are born out of the disruption caused by spatial collapse. Pain and creativity are well known bedfellows. Tricia argues that if we want to design services, products, and policies that truly respond to people’s needs, we need to learn how to identify emergent culture. We need to learn how to not rely on outdated data sets. We need to abandon business as usual to thrive in this rapid time of change.
Key Insights
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The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a 'spatial collapse' that merges home, work, and community spaces, disrupting traditional mental models of time and place.
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Linear perspective, rediscovered in the 15th century by Philippe Bonilewski, created a singular visual algorithm privileging one viewpoint, shaping Western art and philosophy but also acting as a tool of colonization.
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The enclosure movement in England legally displaced millions by privatizing common lands, leading to urbanization, industrialization, and the invention of personal time linked to wage labor.
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Factories during the industrial revolution manipulated workers’ time as a form of control, triggering labor movements that fought for rights to personal and leisure time.
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Mid-20th century urban blight in the US, fueled by segregationist policies like redlining, forcibly displaced Black communities and destroyed traditional first and third spaces, catalyzing new cultural forms like hip-hop.
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Hip-hop culture emerged from repurposed neglected urban public spaces, demonstrating how communities creatively reclaim and re-animate spaces not designed for them.
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Emergent culture arises through 'perspective collisions' when designed systems reveal the limitations of their creators’ viewpoints, often marginalizing certain communities.
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Designers should prioritize 'thick data' — qualitative insights and stories — over traditional quantitative metrics to understand shifting behaviors and needs during times of upheaval.
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Identities are fluid and elastic; treating personas and segments as fixed categories risks exclusion and missing emerging needs.
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Design solutions must be hyper-local, addressing specific community needs first before scaling, recognizing that pandemic life has localized many social and economic interactions.
Notable Quotes
"All of our spaces have crumpled and collapsed onto each other — that’s the mess we’re living in right now."
"Working from home is fun only when you can actually leave your home; during a pandemic, it’s incredibly hard."
"Linear perspective created the myth that one single perspective can represent objective truth, which led to many misunderstandings."
"The factory clocks were instruments not for measurement but for cheating and oppression."
"The right to personal time was fought for by labor unions demanding eight hours work, eight hours rest, and eight hours recreation."
"Hip-hop culture proves that we can re-animate spaces and create generative communities even in spaces that weren’t built for us."
"When infrastructure breaks down, it is human infrastructure — communities and organizers — that saves the day."
"Companies are rethinking their role as more than just business; they’re thinking about new forms of care and community."
"Don’t treat personas or segments as reality but as representations that should remain flexible and questioning."
"We need to get comfortable with the unknown and embrace that some days we’ll sprint and others we’ll fall flat — but we go farther together."
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