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An inductee into the Design Hall of Fame and Fellow of the Design Institute of Australia, Mark Armstrong was Co-founder and Director of Blue Sky Design Group, the company that designed the Sydney Olympic Torch and Qantas check-in experience. He is now a Practice Professor in Design with Monash University and advises Street Furniture Australia’s design team in an era of great technological change Professor Armstrong provides industrial design expertise to several strategic research projects, utilising user-centered design methods to change outcomes for end-users. When and why did you start Blue Sky Design Group, and what was your vision? Blue Sky is a multidisciplinary design firm based in Sydney. The company was started in the early eighties by myself and partner. When it was founded I was working in Europe with Philips and was …

Get full access to the Discovery Report. #WodenExperiment is a six-month furniture installation to activate Woden Town Square in Canberra. The aim is to bring more life and joy to this public space for its community. The project is lead by Street Furniture Australia in partnership with the ACT Government. It began in early 2018 with a 6-week long Discovery phase, to dive deep into the Woden community’s thoughts, feelings and needs. Following the Discovery phase, which sets up the project brief, Context Landscape Design is working on the design concept for the activation. Research partners will help quantify the effect of the transformation. The Discovery journey was essential for establishing a user-centred design for this project. The Woden community generously engaged with our surveys in the square and online via …

Street Furniture Australia, with support from the ACT Government, has begun the Discovery phase for #WodenExperiment, a six-month furniture installation to activate Woden Town Square in Canberra. Members of the community, local businesses and politicians gathered to discuss the project and share their experiences of the square at a workshop held in March. Around 40 participants brainstormed issues and opportunities for the square around Retail Experience, Community Involvement, Comfort and Amenity, and Wow Factor. “It was exciting to see so many people filling the room, with a great mix of people from community, business and local government creating an atmosphere of high energy and interest,” says Diana Hill, Manager Capital Works – Urban with Transport Canberra and City Services. “As a result many great ideas about issues and opportunities were discovered …

Street Furniture Australia has used empathy interviews, personas, observations, journey mapping and other user-centred research techniques to focus Woden Experiment on the community. These qualitative methods unearth rich detail about the lives and needs of people who use Woden Town Square. The aim is to inform the design of the six-month installation with a “community first” philosophy. “We employ user-centred design techniques in the making of our furniture, and #WodenExperiment now offers the opportunity to apply this methodology to public places,” says Mark Armstrong, Street Furniture Australia Design Director. “One of the challenges of public space is meeting the needs of people from many different walks of life. Through our empathy interviews and observations of the town square we have come up with six key personas to design for. “The …

Following the Woden Experiment Workshop, Chris Steel updated the ACT Legislative Assembly about the project. Below is a transcript of his speech. You can also watch the video on Facebook. Chris Steel: “I talk a lot in this place about Woden Town Centre, and I’m going to talk about it again today, because it is exciting to see change taking place in the town centre, the new residential developments, the light rail stage two on its way, and a new focus on placemaking in the centre now as well. “While many of the spaces in Woden are privately owned, those under ACT Government control present an opportunity for improvement and activation, particularly Woden Town Square. “On the 26th of March, Woden Library played host for the #WodenExperiment town hall, kicking …

Do you live, work, shop or hang out in Woden? Woden Experiment is currently in the Discovery Phase. We’d love to know your thoughts and experiences of Woden Town Square. These will be funnelled into our proposal for a 6-month furniture installation to make the square a more welcoming place to spend time. Follow the project on Facebook to keep in touch. Loading…