Stairs Brainstorming

After exploring the stairs and becoming inspired from the neighborhood, I was reading to begin some more focused brainstorming


Stairs Brainstorming
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Goals
I intend to use the South Side Slope’s public pedestrian stairs as a venue for neighbors to asynchronously interact with one another, ultimately creating ambient relationships amongst neighbors and with their environment

Reoccurring Themes

• Asynchronous Interaction
• Ambient Play
• Co-creation
• Community Communication
• Integration with day to day activities

1. Visualization
who is using the stairs now? When do people use the stairs?

2. Polls
What do people on the stairs think?

3. Trivia
Which set of stairs is smartest?

4. Community Board
Question of the day - What do people think? With answers from the previous day from each staircase

5. Community Stair Art
Chalk for people to draw on the stairs, maybe outlined before

6. Musical Stairs
Each stair is a musical instrument, Online recordings of the music people make

7. Stair Scavenger Hunt
Each staircase has an item to find

8. Ambient sound
Records the sounds of the staircases

9. Telephone between stairs
Staircases can call each other

10. Stair Photos
Weekly collages of staircase photos taken by passerbys with a fixed camera

11. Texting Game
Each staircase answers trivia questions or poll questions via text, get response with url to see answers

12. Jigsaw Puzzle Board
A puzzle people can work on as they walk by

13. Magnetic Poetry Board
People can create messages to interact with

14. Stair Pet
A mascot that wanders from staircase to staircase, like where’s waldo. people who find the mascot can send a photo text of it

15. Group Drawings
Boards that allow passers by to draw on them, creating a collaborative drawing

16. Asynchronous board games
Tic Tac Toe, Chess, Checkers, Crossword Puzzles, all played as a community

17.  Augmented Reality
Mobile game played on the stairs via smartphone

18. Stairs of Secrets
People can leave messages or secrets or wishes

19. Photobooth
People can get their photo taken on the way

20. Webcam of Stairs
Online surveillance of stairs

21. Communicate with the Stairs
From home, create sounds to be heard by people in



22. Stair Ad Libs
Ad Libs created by the stairs daily, next day read the results

23. Boardgames amongst Stairs
Passers by on stairs can play amongst eachother

24. Who’s there?
Stairs let people know what kind of activity goes on at the other end

25. Tweeting Stairs
Each staircase can have a twitter station where residents can express themselves however they’d like to

26. Stairs as Controllers
Each Staircase controls a digital mural that can be found online

27. Chatting Stairs
Chatting stations amongst stairs and online/mobile

28. Call the Stairs
Call a phone number and listen to the sounds of the stairs on the phone

29. Chutes and Ladders
Place slides around the neighborhood and play real life chutes and ladders

30. Slides next to Stairs
Encourage people to travel through the neighborhood by placing slides next to the stairs

31. Community Bulletin Board
Allowing Residents to self organize through the staircases

32. Trading Post
Take an item, leave an item

33. I Spy on the Stairs
With a Chalkboard, “I Spy With My Little Eye_______”

34. I Spy a ____ From the Top/Bottom of the Stairs
Motivate people to use the stairs so they can see what’s on the other side

35. Feelings Chart
People can circle how they feel on the feeling chart

Photos from the Neighborhood

I spent most of today exploring the neighborhood that will become my focus for this thesis project. I learned a lot about the users of these pedestrian stairs and experienced the staircases firsthand. Below are some photos from my explorations:

Establishing a Context

I finally discovered a final context that I am confident would make a great backdrop for my thesis: the public pedestrian stairs amongst South Side Slopes. I originally discovered this neighborhood when I noticed the amount of stairways in this area of Pittsburgh as visualized on http://www.communitywalk.com/pittsburgh/pa/pittsburgh_stairs/map/444504

Patterns and Infrastructures

 Today I wrote down some of the patterns I observed from my previous brainstorming. Overall I documented 7 patterns: 

1. The project should encourage ambient play
2. The project should be encountered in passing or by chance
3. The project should utilize an existing infrastructure
4. The project should ultimately strengthen a specific neighborhood 
5. The project should have a bigger goal than simple play such as scoring, points, badges, achievements, etc.
6. The project should encourage subtle mingling and person to person interaction
7. The project should explore a mixture of low and high technologies

Individual Thesis Meeting

Overall, my thesis advisor seemed happy with my brainstorming. One helpful piece of advice was to notice the patterns within my ideas, write them down, and try to create some new ideas following those patterns as guides. She also suggested I verbally express why I chose to refocus my ideas from person to person to person to physical environment interaction. I got some great advice that will definitely help in my next round of brainstorming.

General Brainstorming

From the readings I had done earlier this week, I was inspired to brainstorm some ideas of what this project can become. I've decided to use existing infrastructures such as bridges, bus stops, alley ways, door stoops, etc. as a venue for an ambient play project that connects residents with their neighborhoods.

More Reading

With the advice of my thesis advisors, I have been reading up on more ambient philosophies on play. Some books I've picked up at the library are Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga; Man, Play, Games by Roger Caillois, Rules of Play by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, and Play Ethic by Pat Kane.


Homo Ludens has been my biggest inspiration. This book truly changed my perspective on play: What play is and how people interact with things playfully (we play more than people realize!)