Project Tumut was conducted in 2008 as part of Viveka Turnbull Hocking's PhD thesis, see Beyond the Object. This project aimed to explore fun and creative methods for their ability to facilitate participants of a community (ie. Tumut) to design sustainable possibilities for the future of their town. For more details see chapter 5 of the thesis Concept Development
The project went through a number of phases each phase helping to create the next phase. Phase 1 was an introductory phase and the outcome helped create the next phase. Phase 2 aimed to generate a concept through creative activity packs which participants filled out and sent back. The outcome of phase 2 was the concept 'to diversify cohesively'. This concept was then used to create the games for Phase 3. The aim of this game was to get participants to play with the idea of 'diversifying cohesively'. The outcome of phase 3 can be downloaded as a pdf (see below). These results have help create the possible future scenarios in the form of visualisations in phase 4.
Phase 1 Creative Methods
For more details see pp.160-167 in Chapter 5 and Appendix 3 of the thesis Phase 1 of Project Tumut
This phase consisted of introducing interested Tumut community members to this project. Packs where distributed with information on the project and a creative questionnaire asking people about their creativity and their ideas about Tumut
People in Tumut where asked to fill out the creative questionnaires and return them. Ideas emerging from these questionnaires and discussions with community members.
Some ideas about Tumut as discovered from phase 1:
- A need to create a better balance between industry and culture in an industry dominated town.
- A need to maintain a diversity of ages in the demographics of a town which is aging.
- A general appreciation of the seasonal weather expressed through four distinct seasons in the region
- A significant time commitment to family and sporting activities
From these ideas Phase 2 was designed.
Phase 2 Cultivating a Concept
For more details see pp.167-176 in Chapter 5 and Appendix 4 of the thesis Phase 2 of Project Tumut
Returning to Tumut with new project packs designed from the responses from Phase 1. These Packs with project details and creative activities where distributed around Tumut
Tumut community members were given a pack and asked to fill it out as a household or by themselves or with friends. There were many different activities in the packs and people where asked to choose the activities they wanted to do. Not all the activities need to be completed and households could share which activities each of them engaged in. Then they were asked to refold them into the reply paid envelop and put them in the post.
Results: Diversify Cohesively (Concept formulated from Phase 2)
From this result Phase 3 was designed.
Phase 3 All Fun and Games
The games in this phase aim to allow participants to play with the concept of 'diversify cohesively' (generated from phase 2) in order to work up scenarios for possible futures. The game play consists of two parts; Larry the story tree creature and the storyscape game.
For more details see pp.177- 185 in Chapter 5 and Appendix 5 of the thesis Phase 3 of Project Tumut
Larry the story tree creature:
This is the first part of phase 3. Larry is a large beanbag creature created as a three dimensional interactive object. The aim of this object is to collect stories about Tumut; what people in Tumut do in their everyday lives for work rest and play. Participants are given green leaf shaped pieces of paper to write one sentence telling Larry something about life in Tumut eg. about the different places people work, or the different things people do on the weekend, or the different everyday chores people do. These leaves are put on Larry to foliate him with stories. These then form the current stories in Tumut and become one of the cards in the storyscape game. Larry was designed to see how a 3D object may help engage participants compared to the 2D activity packs in the previous phase. Larry is meant to encourage a fun and playful experience. Larry may be childlike in appearance but is intended to encourage the child in all of us to engage in a playful way to foliate Larry with current stories of the town and community.
Storyscape game:
This game consists of cards and a board (storyscape) , players are story-makers and they score points for making new stories and making links between stories. The person who can make and link the most stories wins! Larry the story tree creature collects current stories about Tumut which forms one set of cards in the Storyscape Game.Cards: 4 different kinds of cards; current stories from larry, new story cards which prompts the creation of future stories for tumut, link cards which suggests links between stories. Each card shows the player what they can do on their turn.
Board: A large grid board, small pieces of coloured paper and pens. The board will end up looking like a mind-map with current stories and new stories linked together to create a storyscape. The different coloured paper corresponds to one of the sets of cards above: current story (pail green), new story (pail blue) or link (white stickers) . The player can then put a current story or new story on the board by writing it on the corresponding coloured paper and in one of the grid squares on the board. The player can also make links between stories by writing the type of link on the white sticker and sticking it between the stories on the board to link the stories together.
The results of this phase helped to design Phase 4
Phase 4 Scenarios of Sustainable Wellbeing
For more details see pp. 186-195 in Chapter 5 and Appendix 6 of the thesis Phase 4 of Project Tumut
Friday afternoon on the 17th of April 2009 I displayed 4 posters in Tumut of the Visualised Scenarios created from Phase 3. I handed out booklets and got people to fill in feedback forms.
Conference papers about Project Tumut:
- CO-DESIGNING A SUSTAINABLE CULTURE OF LIFE
Changing the Change, Turino, July 2008 [download pdf] - DESIGNING A TRAVEL GUIDE TO THE UN-NATURAL WORLD
Undisciplined, Sheffield, July 2008 [download pdf] - DESIGN WITH A THOUSAND FACES
Interdisciplinary Social Science, Prato, July 2008 (now published in The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Science, Vol.4, No.3, pp.1-16) [download pdf] - ENABLING DESIGN FOR SUSTAINABLE FUTURES
Cumulus Conference, Melbourne, November 2009 [download pdf]
For more see Papers & Publications