By: Layla de Blok
Tutors: Wim Schermer and Evert van Beek
Keywords: Hostels, environmental design, social behaviour, interior, spatial awareness
Design Goal
I want solo hostel guest to show their intension to socialize or not, so other guest feel encouraged to act accordingly, without anyone feeling ashamed or rude.
Interaction vision
Diving with friends while….
….focussing on the road or
….singing along with the radio.
Dichotomia
During my research in hostels I realized that where and how people sit shows if someone is open to socializing or not. Via rapid prototyping I found principles for this. I used two of these principles for my product. The first is that people perceive ‘social centre’ where they think socializing will happen.
If they wanted to socialize they subconsciously faced this centre, if they did not want to socialize they subconsciously faced away. The other principle was that people tried to make eye contact before they approached someone. The design is a chair that takes away the affordance for eye-contact when the user turns away from the social-centre.
