Update on Project Activities
Before Thanksgiving break, our team emailed the notes we took at the charrette to our community partners at NEN. Each of our team members took charge of two the 6 topics (food, water, energy, waste, communication, and shelter management) that were covered during the charrette, and each of us submitted our parts of the notes separately to the NEN team. Since then, NEN has requested that the notes to be consolidated into a single document, so we are now working on bringing everything together in a format that will present the notes on all 6 topics in a uniform way. Additionally, we are continuing our work with the visual graphic that is part of our project deliverables. This graphic is designed to represent the vision we currently have of the toolkit and will contain much of the information we gathered during the charrette. In the next couple of days, we will be coming together as a team to further refine the layout of our visual graphic and to make final adjustments to our Expo presentation. What We Observed and Learned Going through our data we gathered many insights from the charrette, relating both to technical specifications of survival mechanisms and large constructs to consider when designing a toolkit. Some of the most important insights were separation between preparation and response (depending itself on the level of preparation), resource availability for individuals and communities, and legibility of information. There are many existing resources pointed out by the attendees, however they pertain to specific solutions at an enthusiast’s level; the question becomes how to rephrase that information for a more general crowd. It is important then to also consider what information is important for whom. Though building a “survival shed” is a great solution for a higher income community member, what would be a comparable set of advice for someone who is more strained on resources? These are the kinds of tensions we will need to outline in our report so that they are are appropriately addressed in the toolkit development with communities. Critical Analysis/Moving Forward During the class meeting on Wednesday, our team worked out a plan of action for the exposition next week and prepared an outline for our deliverables. Going through the notes we gathered from the charrette, we’ve identified a central theme across all of the topics: The best tool somebody can have in an emergency situation is literacy. Our plan for the toolkit is to present basic survival concepts related to the topics we believe people should be familiar with. We also want to incorporate the role of community in resilience by including contact information for local hubs and block champions. These are the two main “takeaways” in our opinion, however we hope our results will continue to be reviewed by the NEN team and presented to community stakeholders. We furthermore believe there are more discussions to be had about the actual content included. Primarily, we currently present a portion of our information as URLs, which may not be accessible in extreme cases of lifeline interruption. The idea behind this is that members of the community can pick the information they believe is most relevant to their needs, and not us. Considering the importance of community input in design decisions, we want to keep our content open-ended. In terms of physical appearance, our current design for the toolkit is a laminated pamphlet that is resistant to harsh conditions (such as rain). Update on Project Activities
This past Saturday, the Stanford team went to San Francisco for the Strong Homes Campaign Charrette hosted by the Neighborhood Empowerment Network. The objective of the charrette was to brainstorm solutions to different challenges people could face in the face of an earthquake in San Francisco. The event was a key milestone in our participation in the Strong Homes Campaign, as we collected the majority of the data needed for the final compilation of our deliverable, the earthquake resilience toolkit, through the event. Following the charrette, we are now trying to follow the project timeline we prepared earlier this quarter. Our first goal, which we accomplished this week, was to digitize the results, primarily the posters and backyard diagrams designed by the participants, of the charrette and share them with the NEN coordinators Daniel and Neftali. We now intend to get in contact with the NEN team soon in order to reflect on the results and discuss some ideas we may have for the final toolkit. Our biggest takeaway from the event was that literacy in survival techniques, not necessarily physical tools, is the most important asset a neighborhood could have to be well prepared to face a worst-case earthquake scenario. We hope to reflect this finding in our design for the toolkit. What We Observed and Learned Participating in last weekend’s charrette helped our team grow in multiple ways. First, going through the presentation that we gave regarding past disasters really helped us become more comfortable with sharing what we’ve learned to those who are invested in the wellbeing of Bay Area communities. And as we prepare for the expo at the D-School, going through the process of presenting as a team and refining the process of how we prepare our presentations gave us time to look back on our midterm presentation and address the areas that we felt were lacking. Second, interacting with the charrette participants helped us see how passionate community members are about building a more resilient San Francisco. Additionally, Wednesday’s guest speaker helped us better appreciate NEN’s approach in building the toolkit. Our guest lecturer said that when helping people it is best to ‘come with humility and ask questions.’ This is exactly what NEN is doing in preparing this toolkit, and we are excited to be part of a team that is doing it in that way. Critical Analysis/Moving Forward We now run the challenge of making something out of the collection of info we have received, which comes in various formats. We need to digest this diverse set of data and display it in such a way that will be conducive to reaching out to communities and from then on developing the final toolkit. Throughout the data there are focuses on habit forming and supply stocking, as well as multiple considerations such as space, community cohesion, and socio economic differences that may affect recommendations. The most clear cut divisions were advice for pre-disaster awareness and post-disaster survival, with consideration made for the case in which no preparation was made. As we move forward we need to figure out the most intuitive way to condense these different considerations into a single report. This means pulling data from our different means (personal notes, group notes, maps from the mapping exercise) into our report. Our current plan is to read through the data, make a set of organizational categories, code the data through these categories, and finally condense these bits and pieces into a report. We may also want to think of graphic representations that may aid in communicating the results from the charrette. Update on Project Activities
This week is our pre-charrette week which involved having a final preparation meeting with the whole team. We affirmed the role of our presentation in inspiring and contextualizing the charrette through our presentation, decided on materials to prep, and clarified our individual roles in facilitating the charrette. The charrette will focus on two main brainstorming activities, one to discuss specific lifeline categories and one to discuss specific all inclusive scenarios. Our role will be to notetake and assist facilitation. We finalized our presentation on general lessons learned from the North Bay fires, Hurricane Harvey, and a series of past earthquakes. This presentation will serve to contextualize the charrette and reaffirm the importance and significance of the event. We also prepared a series of diagrams of plan and section views of the different yards the charrette will develop solutions for. These will serve as tools from which to illustrate different solutions brainstormed at the charrette. What We Observed and Learned Through our conference call this week, we were informed on the final logistics of the Charette we will be having tomorrow (Nov. 11). This includes the order of activities, a finalized roster of participants, and some last-minute ideas including the neighborhood and home maps for people to brainstorm their ideas on. We think the maps are imperative in keeping the participants engaged and in providing an outlet for them to map their ideas out. As we have learned in lecture, in particular from the Chinatown presentation by Mei Lum and Diane Wong, having some kind of visual engagement is key in these kinds of community brainstorm session. Through our presentation research, we discovered four key points to developing a toolkit that we will provide as food for thought for the attendees: 1) It’s important to understand the extent of assistance you may receive from emergency services. 2) In a post disaster situation communities and households are their own first responders. 3) It is critical to be aware of available resources and potential vulnerabilities. 4) We can build city resilience by increasing citizen knowledge of dangers and responses. These are important considerations that can hopefully steer the charrette as well as the way we digest the information we gather. Critical Analysis/Moving Forward With our presentation prepared and logistics figured out for the charrette, our next important step is gathering data during our charrette. We discussed some guidelines as to how we intend to take notes such that our data is meaningful and coherent. Particularly, we want to capture important actions and items people mention, and record certain quotes mentioned that we deem important and we can include in our final framework. We also think it is important to make sure to ask for clarification in case something said is ambiguous, and meet up regularly throughout the charrette to compare what we have and change our strategy for note collection going forward if needed. Following these guidelines, we will have dynamic process of data collection that can adapt to evolving conversations and preserve accuracy. Update on Project Activities
We were fortunate enough to have members of SURI present during class this past week, and having them there really helped us better understand some concepts regarding earthquake preparedness. Specifically, their example of how soil liquefaction caused some of Christchurch’s residential and business areas to be shut off for years after the 2011 earthquake encouraged us to further our research into San Francisco’s own liquefaction zones. We are now gathering more knowledge about this topic and we hope to incorporate it into our charrette presentation or into the visualization/info-graphic we are to produce soon after the charrette. We also had the opportunity to meet with the SURI team afterwards to ask them questions about their experience working in community-based development projects similar to the Strong Homes campaign, and to see if they had any data or infographics that we could incorporate into our presentation during the charrette. This week we were also able to connect with our community partner through a webinar that all of our team members were able to participate in. We found the webinar to be very productive because it helped us better understand the structure of NEN and the goals of the Strong Homes Campaign. Additionally, the webinar gave us a much-needed opportunity to connect with our community partner and receive immediate guidance on matters that were unclear to us. As part of our project, we are expected to produce a visualization/info-graphic that makes use of our research and the information that we are able to gather during the charrette. This week, our team continued brainstorming new ideas of how we might be able to do this. One idea is that we can create a digital (printable) pamphlet that contains useful information that can help Bay Area residents after a catastrophic earthquake. To jump start our progress in the development of this part of our project, our team has begun designing templates that may be used for the info-graphic using Adobe Illustrator. What We Observed and Learned One basic lesson is one of scope. Talking with SURI we came across the question of what can be observed at the individual, community, and city level. SURI, focusing on the city level in terms of study and preparedness, recommended that we emphasize personal accounts and dilemmas framed by data at different scopes. This distinction is key in determining where to place our focus and navigate these different scope levels during the charrette distinctions. From our NEN webinar we got to clarify some basic information of where our work fit into the full vision of NEN. This was helpful in understanding how our work ties into the larger community oriented work of the organization and its mission. We are essentially working on developing resources based on a community-determined need, to then aid in the development of the toolkit at the neighborhood level. We are linking expert knowledge with the communities, and it's our responsibility to package it in an intelligible and productive manner. It was confirmed that our role is very much on the backend of the charette. This means preparing for how we are going to effectively condense and communicate the takeaways from the charrette. We thought about different communication styles and useful focus for the toolkit (should it focus on utility topics or on responding to specific scenarios?). We also began to prepare for how we will code and condense the notes in a systematic way. We reaffirmed the need for thoroughness and consistency in going through the notes as a team. Critical Analysis/Moving Forward In our meeting with SURI, we discussed the methods they use to gather probabilities of various events occurring based on a region’s geography and infrastructure. For example, we were wondering if with their current models, they have been able to calculate the most likely duration of time it would take for government response to reach a particular area of the city. While we were hoping that there could be some existing models for San Francisco that we could use, their research is currently in very early stages and no such numbers currently exist. Although such data could have enabled us to tailor toolkits to each region, we are going to stick with the original plan of making a worst-case scenario toolkit that addresses general severe lifeline interruption. Since we are working on a large collaboration with a limited time schedule, including such revisions could take particularly long. In our case, we will focus on fulfilling our clear and established objective of creating a framework for a general, worst-case scenario toolkit. In regards to the toolkit specifications, we had the chance to clarify our understanding of the exact specifics for our deliverable toolkit framework. As stated earlier, we envision it to be more of an informational pamphlet that can inform communities on the procedures and tools they could leverage to survive long durations on their own. Such a design could be easily presentable and engaging. Since we are hoping that the framework will be subject to further community review after it’s creation, having such a format will also make it easy to get feedback from stakeholders. Furthermore, it would serve as an excellent medium to present our findings during our culminating presentation on December 13th. We also had the chance to better understand our role in the scope of the project. During the webinar, Daniel mentioned that Strong Homes campaign stems from a direct community request for solutions to challenges that may arise during disasters. Referencing our earlier concerns regarding this project’s relevance to communities, we are happy to see that there already is a community desire for this product, and that we are working towards something that is already wanted by our stakeholders. Update on Project Activities
In the next two weeks leading up to the charrette, our team will focus on conducting more research on the health impacts that residents may face after a natural disaster. At the start of this project, the issues that immediately came to our minds when we first began considering the negative health impacts that can result from an earthquake were mostly things such as sickness from disease and physical exhaustion from the lack of food and water. But as we have continued our research we have come to realize that there are many other health related concerns we must look further into so that we may contribute to the mitigation of these other issues. We feel that the psychological health and morale of residents after a catastrophic event is a matter that we must be prepared to bolster during trying times. And though we are sure there are ways to do this both pre-event and post-event, we do not know exactly how just yet. To address this, we will conduct research and come together as a group to brainstorm problems and solutions to health issues that may come from declining psychological health and morale. Questions we currently want to consider include the following: What impact might fear and anxiety have on the immune system? How will living outdoors for an extended period make residents feel about the loss of physical security? Is there a way to rebuild a sense of security during this time? How can residents cope with minimal contact with family and friends? What are the varying fight-or-flight responses that residents might demonstrate after a disastrous earthquake? There are many matters and scenarios for our team to consider, and it is important for us to explore so that we can be prepared to share as much as we can during our presentation at the charrette. What We Observed and Learned Throughout our classes this week we encountered the complexities of tackling local issues under complex systems of power and resource allocation at different levels of government. This raised the question of where NEN sits within the matrix of power over city recovery in case of a disaster. This will fortunately serve as an important way to contextualize our meeting next week which will go into depth over NEN. We now are more keen on thinking through the kind of power NEN might have and how it might interplay with the city, region, state, and nation in making policy decisions for recovery. It will also help us pay more attention to possible limitations. We feel that in order to reach a better understanding of the charrette process it is good to have a broader understanding of the impacts of disaster. The issue of morale and emotional damage has deepened our understanding of disaster’s possible ramifications and will serve as yet another card to play during the charrette when attempting to elicit information. Physical survival is important but can often be limited if emotional capacity and morale is low. The upcoming meeting on NEN will be key on clarifying what kind of information can be acted upon based on NEN’s status in terms of a larger network of local influence. Additionally, we will continue our research on past disasters and these new lenses have granted new avenues for nuancing our understanding of disaster response. Critical Analysis/Moving Forward We have outlined a pretty ambitious plan that will require our team to pick up our pace of work in the time period following the charrette. Reflecting on some of the concepts we have learned about ethical service through our lectures and reading, our team has set a goal to get a sufficient amount of community input into the design for this project before it is released. We have included the necessary steps to get this done before the end of our quarter in the updated Project Plan that we have sent for review to the NEN team. In summary, it includes an extra community-outreach step after the Stanford Team compiles the notes from the charrette, which will be then considered in the final toolkit framework. We hope we could get some help from the NEN team for the community outreach step, as it has the resources and connections to get community input on the notes. We are also considering conducting research in our locale to get input on how this framework might be considered by communities in the South Bay and Peninsula areas. While we realize this may not be achievable with current resources, we hope that we can at least coordinate our efforts in setting up the infrastructure to achieve this before the Sustainable Cities course ends. These additions are open to discussion and change. We would also like to start organizing the Pre-Charrette meeting, and figure out if we would like to conduct it through a group call, or in person. Ideally, we hope we can figure out a time for which we can all meet in person sometime during the week of November 6th. Finally, it would be great to know if there are any other calls the Stanford Team can sit in on before the charrette as well. |
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