Rediscovering Emotional Design through Sustainable Living
Juxtaposition is a core design thinking principle. Multiple elements together form a composition. What dictates the usage of elements is the contextual setting. Emotional design on Sustainable Living needed visual support. The main article was divided into three broad parts, 'Opportunities, Challenges, and a holistic perspective with conclusions'. This visual design exercise was an attempt to get the crux of it out in one image (or three or four).
1. A romanticised view of a city
Opportunities: Imagine an ideal environment that has everything together. There is less space in these cities as it is how we see it currently. Even though they are crowded, and there is a lack of space. We dream of ventilated spaces and emotive structures within them.
Placing visual identifiers that trigger memory, & key elements that an audience can relate to was an important aspect of these compositions. For example, putting nostalgic buildings that take us back to when we were growing up while new structures ran parallel. The Sadabahaars & other flowers nudge these boxes to live a little, imagining a building that incorporates them somehow. Green doors and wooden windows together remind us of the typical design that is still present in our cities.
This composition is divided into two sections, one is the skyline and the other is the underground of a city. The latter one being a metaphor for mechanisms that help run a city. The standing fan attached with pipes and knobs is a popular object in many shops and houses alike.
2. Signs of Progress for the Masses
Challenges: The people of different economic strata are key to any social innovation. And for them new modern-looking buildings mean prosperity.
Going to higher levels of success is shown with stairways to higher grounds and beyond. It is a world they are yet to imagine. The people come from various backgrounds, some have fashionable clothes, some are street sellers, some are looking for employment, some are of the older generations, and some are very pious.
There are signs everywhere from QR codes to warnings, to STD/ ISD Call Booth Signs, to reflect the duality of experiences. It is a digitally forward country, yet it still holds on to primitive ways. There are colourful street lights that light up old structures and corporate buildings together. Time is above everyone. And beyond the modern structures is a balloon that you’d like to have but just haven’t gotten the chance to get yet.
3. Environmentally future-forward city Integrated culturally
Holistic View: A futuristic city that has efficient energy with windmills, and modern buildings with a touch of tradition that still gives out food to animals. An envisioned city with policies that make structures have vertical vegetation and gardens. With electric cars beside huts that show simple living. Modern and traditional housing integrated along with environmentally conscious public transport such as e-rickshaws & electric buses.
The hand with gloves & the cleaning bottle on the frame show a framed picture that is up-kept, that citizens can take pride in. Within this frame and a little outside of it, there is a woman cleaning with a thick traditional Indian broom to remind us to: Make our cities like our homes.
Vanilla clouds to dream of a future that one can plan building towards. The background is more looming than the foreground here to symbolize busy energy. The future is greener and more adaptable to the balance of nature, which aspires to development that is planned and spaced out well. Spaces that make way for parks and greener lands.