wePlan Combining Wellbeing Information with Visualisations for Meaningful Representation of Spatial Design- using reference class forecasting and geo-situated augmented reality technology for informed engagement of disadvantaged communities

Abstract

Participatory spatial design, or PSD, has yet to deal with the challenge of communicating design intent across experts and disadvantaged end-users through representations. Engagement interventions in Balakot, Pakistan are a vivid example. Despite efforts to introduce earthquake-resistant construction options, many villagers still use the post-lintel technology that was a cause for the loss of 70,000 lives in the 2005 earthquake. A number of authors associate this problem of ineffectiveness with technology-driven top-down consultative approaches. Technology can excel in conveying what a proposal looks like, but this can be insufficient for lay citizens to extract what it may mean for their wellbeing. Bottom-up engagement approaches excel in informing on such meaning, but the discursive methods used risk compromising the ethics of unequal power relations. This thesis is positioned such that it appropriates the technology of top-down approaches to formalize bottom-up empowering methods, albeit limited to the specific idea of supplementing representational visualizations with analogies to inform about wellbeing implications. This concept, tentatively labeled wePlan, has been actualized and tested as a device-based interface for PSD sessions in Balakot. Geo-situated augmented reality visualizations (G-AR), were supplemented with the behavior economics concept of reference class forecasting (RCF). Participants were invited to select a construction technology for proposed buildings, followed by a request to state the reason for their selection. Results indicate that villagers tend to select mostly on the basis of appearance, but after interacting with wePlan a significant shift occurred towards thinking of safety. wePlan thus revived their interest to save lives over a consumerist concern for looks. Though the use of symbols to denote options may have prevented the selection of a matching option, this partial success contributes to meaningful engagement of disadvantaged communities. Besides serving as a proof of concept for wePlan, embodying G-AR and RCF, this thesis also offers a systematic protocol for planning and conducting global replications. It suggests a reconceptualization of representations within PSD, as not merely an apolitical display but a politically charged act of informing.