Objective: To apply the framework of design thinking, user's centric and experience research to find problems of the people of an urban restrict in Thailand, Ari as well as design solution in the form of urban intervention to creatively solve the issues and improve the quality of life for the people.

Introduction: As population growth, natural disasters, and rapid urban lifestyle are noticeably increasing, the need to change and adapt to urban development is necessary for all aspects of life. That is why urban planning plays a crucial role in providing inclusivity, safety, and a sustainable city. This article aims to study the insights of urban problems through various research methods inside the district of Ari and provide a suitable urban solution that benefits everyone especially, the people of Ari.

This study will be using the double diamond design process which is divided into Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver.

Ari is a rising residential neighborhood located inside the city of Bangkok mixed with offices and café hopping opportunities. With all the potential inside the Ari district, urban development can also significantly attract more tourists.

To gain a deeper and more accurate insight into what exactly the urban problems inside Ari is, we use different methods to get information inside the district itself. Ranging from primary research by observing the life of residential people to surveying and interviewing everyone that is living inside Ari and foreigners that are visiting Ari. Later on, we use mapping and role-playing techniques to see the active location inside Ari. Finally, we did secondary research to find some case studies that have been done related to urban solutions that might be suitable for us to apply in Ari.

As we analyze the Power of 10+ and figure-ground map, we found out that there is

only 1 open green space inside Ari which is located in the governmental area.

Later on, we also conducted role-playing as a foreign tourists asking people in Ari where the nearest park is. This can tell whether they know about the existence of Ari park or are they proud to recommend Ari park. As a result, only 18.2% mentioned Ari park. Moreover, in the survey, 70.4% of over 200 people stated that they hardly go, have heard but never go, or don’t know the park exists.

Next, from our survey, Ari people also wish to have more public spaces as there are few clustered cafes in one area with disconnected sidewalks. This problem is confirmed with our site interview. Our interviewees stated that since it is hard to walk, they mostly stay at home and would like to have some public space for them to spend their leisure time around their neighborhood.

For the condition of the streets from what we observe and analyze Ari soi 1 and 2 which both are close the Ari BTS station has the most well-maintained street with proper shading, safe sidewalks, and have a lot of activity, but if we go deeper into the district starting from Soi 3 those are the streets that we encounter some problems such as small to no sidewalk, not user inclusive, quite many elements blocking the sidewalk and safeness issues.

And for the findings and insights that we have gathered from the interviews, observations, and a survey the result is a lack of community cohesion, ari residences lack connections to their community, and lack a sense of unity. From the survey, 44% said that they never too rarely interact with their neighbors and 55% said that they hang out with friends once a month or 1–2 times every 2 weeks. We also see that most of the private residents have high walls surrounding their houses.

From our research, we’ve finalized our main problem into 3 problems as follows:

According to the research and insight that we got from interviews, observations, and surveys, we got our how might we question which is

“How might we create a sustainable urban intervention that encourages Ari residential people to interact more inside their neighborhood to raise the level of social cohesion?”

The reason why we chose this one, was because we saw that it combines the opportunity of unused space and the problem related to the facilities inside the park and it is quite doable and provides a good impact according to the scale.

After we got the problem statement, we tried to brainstorm the potential solutions to tackle the challenges and tried to categorize and merge them.

We also attempted to group and categorize solutions based on theme similarity.

After each group member has proposed solutions to our HMW. On the Impact & Feasibility graph, we rank the solutions to see if they have a high impact and require a lot of effort to build.

Once we had evaluated all the solutions, we narrowed them down to the top 3 which could have the highest impact, and those included renovating the park to get more visitors and increase social gathering, designing mini social spaces in dead-end streets in Ari for neighbors to have the chance to hang out and meetup nearby, and having a community trash collection area and social pavilion inside the neighborhood to manage trash better while also giving neighbors a chance to chit chat when they come out to throw trash.

After much consideration, we decided to work on the park. We want to renovate the entire area and zone it as well as create a specific entrance to the park so it is easier to access and feels more open to the public. We selected this solution because it will create more opportunities for people to interact with each other and build a strong sense of community among them.

Next, without wasting any time we started ideating how we could renew the park and what could be done within the space, then conceptualizing the ideas through various sketches.

We then completed our final concept sketch and also conducted a measurement by using ArcGIS to ensure that our solution would fit within the parking space.

Since the park is located in governmental zones, the park does not look friendly, accessible, and welcoming to the outside visitors. Hence, how are we going to make the park more accessible and more connected to the people?

According to the map below, there is an unused gate in the public relation departments that connects from the main road, Rama VI soi 30. We can turn this entrance into a proper park entrance to make it easier for people to travel to the park.

We also want to add another entrance gate to the road in front of the Department of Environmental Quality Promotion.

After making the park more connected and easier for people to travel to, we plan to renovate the inside layout of the park to be more suitable for social interactions and social activities. The layout of the park is divided into multiple squares, serving different purposes.

Looking onto the first square, which is the social square in the park’s center. The square’s primary purpose is to serve as a gathering place for people. It might be utilized for a variety of social and community activities, including local farmers’ markets, local art exhibits, local product days, and so on.

With a variety of sitting pavilions next to the area, a wide range of individuals can enjoy it without limitation. It generates a strong sense of unity. In designing this square, we examined a Case Study entitled Meaning and Design of Farmers’ Markets as Public Space, which shows how local marketplaces bring people together. In the study, the marketplace in the park is known as a “place for people” since it brings people together and fosters public life.

The playground, which is located next to the social square, is another essential element of the neighborhood park. We created a water cooling playground to make the site more interesting during the hot season. The kids may enjoy the playground to the fullest without worrying about it being slippery and wet after rain. A large number of benches surround the plaza, which serves a variety of purposes, including encouraging individuals to meet new people and form new connections while watching their children play. According to the case study we discovered, a playground with a creative and innovative design may be a destination that attracts families and visitors of all backgrounds and ages to come and enjoy themselves and make new friends.

The third area that is being included in this park is a fitness square. By constructing a fitness area, it will provide a well-designed workout place for everyone to access, encouraging people to exercise more in order to enhance their health. Additionally, it helps the outdoor exercise community to flourish. As per research, the majority of individuals using this area are middle-aged people, so placing it near the pond will make them feel more comfortable with the cooler air. Furthermore, we discovered that the primary aim of traveling to the park is not simply to visit; seniors also spend that time improving their health by exercising and forming new social connections.

Another important area that we will be incorporating into the park is a picnic area along with a beautiful art wall. People can gather in this area to have small parties, picnics, play board games, and meet up with friends or family all while enjoying nature. This place is also instagrammable due to the art wall behind the area which is a key element of this area as it will display Ari’s artistic side. We will invite local artists to create their image of ari on the wall which will not only display local talent but also make the area much more aesthetically pleasing.

Upon completing the design of our final solution we decided to ask our audience, who are Ari’s residents, to tell us how they feel about this concept and what they would like to include or change. Overall they were really interested and liked the idea, but some of them did give us suggestions of what more we could include in the park such as larger shading in the picnic area to protect from rain and weekly activities to keep the users engaged more.

Now, we are going to take a look at all the suggestions and see how we could implement them and improve the park design even further. Once we are done with that we will start looking for public funding by launching our idea on public funding sites to collect capital and bring our project into reality.

Our reflection on this project from the start to the current process. We have learned a lot such as how to make a goal before doing anything observations, interviews, meetings and etc. we have to manage our time to do many things at once so we started to have a schedule.

For every meeting date and time, one thing that we didn’t do according to the schedule is how long the meeting was going to be each time we tend to go over the time that we estimated. Some of our members have a hard time managing their work and mental health but they do their best to persevere. Some members take the workload very well and with their leadership they guide us from the start to finish. Things that we need to learn more and/or improve first is to communicate with each other better, due to the fact that most of our members are international students. We try our best to use English as the main language to communicate.

Link to our Advertisement video: https://youtu.be/12m4WcWN_eYLink to our Process recap Video: https://youtu.be/K7KdizvSSlQ