Literature Review: Design Thinking and Place

Abstract

Design-thinking frameworks help professionals to design solutions for complex problems. Design processes take into account the context of a problem, and among these contextual factors is place. Because place is relational, capturing dynamic relationships between other factors of design problems, it deserves special attention from stakeholders trying to tackle wicked problems. This literature review elaborates on the relationship between place and design thinking, focusing on the importance of privileging place in user-centered design processes.

Migrants as Place-Makers

“…However, while I do find Overmyer and Brock's [5] more nuanced distinction between space and place appropriate, I have trouble with their regarding of people as users. Their literature review draws the term "users" from urban thinkers like Jane Jacobs [8] and William Hollingsworth Whyte [7] in The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces in which commerce drives place design.…”

“…Technical communication derives definitions of space, place, and place-making from other fields. Urban planners and designers are perhaps the most recognizable thinkers of space and place where the general conversation distinguishes space as a non-exceptional location absent of social and cultural significance and place as a recognizable location that to some degree is used by a group of people for cultural and social purposes [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. Daniel Arreola [4], in Hispanic Spaces, Latino Places argues that a space is a fixed location that has the potential to accommodate cultural and social functions for a community (p. 10-40).…”

“…Transforming space into place can be much more nuanced than Arreola [4] and Jacobs [8] can suggest. A literature review published in the Journal of Business and Technical Communication by Trinity Overmyer and Erin Brock Carlson [5] centralizes users of space as place-makers. No matter how well designed, well intentioned, or well located a space, without people there is no cultural significance to make place.…”

“…And unlike Arreola [4] and Jacobs [8] who suggest that landmarks and design have the most control in place-making, Overmyer and Carlson [5] assert that a place can lose its significance and revert back to a space if a community stops using a place: in their words, places "are constantly in flux because they are perpetually defined (and redefined) by their use, relationships, inhabitants, and culture. That is, space is understood as the physical environment and experienced similarly by everyone whereas place is inherently social and can take on different meanings and uses across users" [5] (p.433 emphasis in original). A place may be recognized by one group and not another, but I argue that if at least one group gives a space cultural significance it is a place.…”

“…It is likely one of the first water stations that migrants encounter after crossing the border to head northeast towards Tucson. To cite Overmyer and Brock [5], the symbol of a blue barrel in Sasabe has been defined by migrants as a place where water can be reliably found and the migrant response has been to consume the water on their path 7 The November 6 weekly log shows that Sasabe was not visited that week for a reason not described. The zero galls of water replaced at the Sasabe station that week does not indicate there was an absence of migrants, rather Humane Borders did not check if water needed to be replaced.…”