PERSONAL ESSAY

As designers, part of our job is to solve problems by creating delightful experiences through interactions with the environment of the built world. Our expertise of the human experience allows us to take a different, more empathetic and mindful approach than that of engineers, architects, or scientists. We have a keen eye for observation and awareness and deeply value the user’s point of view. As a result, our perspective tends to bring about new and unexpected solutions when introduced into a new field. In a field such as public health, design’s ability to influence the emotional and psychological experiences of the user can be applied to improving a person’s emotional well-being.

The series of suicides that occurred on Ohio State parking garages is what began to pull me, as a designer, into the complex public health issue of mental illness and suicide prevention. I couldn’t imagine the pain that those people were going through that would push them to suicidality, and I wanted to do something to help. As a designer, I am an expert on human experiences, so might there be a role I can play in improving the daily experiences of people so they might not reach that level of pain and suffering?

The Ohio State Mental Health and Suicide Task Force released a report regarding several measures that should be taken to address the issue of mental health on campus, one of which was creating a Culture of Care. A Culture of Care “encompasses a full, concentrated environment by the entire university community to outreach to one another” (“Suicide and Mental Health Task Force: Recommendation Report” 25). In their current state, the campus parking garages are not places that cultivate a culture of care. They are, in fact, non-places. In the book Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity by Marc Augé, a non-place is described as a place that is “there to be passed through,” like a freeway or grocery store, and lacks significant meaning to the user. A non-place is set up to “create the shared identity” of anyone who passes through, each person contractually binded to the same set of rules, eliminating any sense of individuality (Augé 81).

“A non-place creates neither singular identity nor relations; only solitude and similitude” (83). Being assimilated into the same being as hundreds of others ironically creates a feeling of solitude. It is this feeling of solitude and loneliness that a culture of care is meant to combat. Augé uses the term ‘anthropological place’ to describe the opposite of a non-place. It is a place that “is formed by individual identities” rather than forcing users into a shared one (81). It has meaning to the user and “is never completely erased” from their mind (64). As designers, we have the power to transform the parking garage from a non-place into a place. A place in which one’s experience does not result in a feeling of solitude, but a sense that their presence has an impact and that they are cared for and valued.