Reading Reflections
On Friday May 5, 2005, our group met with a focus group comprised of Korean students to assess some of the opportunities to bring learning into New Song-Do. Two readings—Lave & Wenger (1991) and Michalchik (1997)—prove to be particularly useful when reflecting on issues brought up in our focus group and thinking about design application.
One of our group’s chief tasks involves designing learning into our city so that all members of the community can become full participants. As Lave and Wenger (1991) state, “Becoming a full participant certainly includes engaging with the technologies of everyday practice, as well as participating in the social relations, production processes and other activities of communities of practice” (p.101). One fact made quite clear by members of our focus group was the prevalence and access to technology in Seoul (located northwest of New Song-do). Thus, our challenge becomes creating an ‘access to understanding’ rather than an access to technology and helping newcomers become ‘legitimate participants in a community’. Since the city is designed to incorporate as many newcomers (90% foreigners, 10% Koreans) as possible, ensuring that people are able to learn how to effectively use technology to become ‘legitimate participants’ is one of our key challenges.
One of the crucial take-aways from our focus group was the need to create a ‘display of cultural knowledge’ (Michalchik, 1997) in order to create full and legitimate participants in the city. Often, technology can be viewed as a sterile medium which alienates cultural practices. However, as Wave and Lenger comment, “Understanding the technology of practice is more than learning to use tools; it is a way to connect with the history of the practice and to participate more directly in its cultural life” (p.101). According to one focus group respondent, even though the city is geared towards foreigners, Koreans and non-Koreans alike will want a city that displays cultural knowledge rather than one which simply resembles a generic Westernised city. Thus, our challenge as designers is to find a way to infuse cultural information and knowledge into our design.
Michalchik discussed the intertwinement of cultural knowledge displays within the church, family and school activities. Plentiful opportunity to create a collaborative cultural learning experience whereby city residents fellowship (Korean drinking, Lunar New Year, etc) with one another in the spirit of community. As such, our group hopes to impart the notion of ‘chung’ (from the Chinese character meaning affection, loyalty, affinity) into our design.
Dan: Really nice connections here, I hope this was useful for you because it certainly is for me. I really like tying your thoughts in with specific commetns from your focus group especially the idea that the place can't resemble a generic western city and that some kind of access to cultural knowledge could be a big differentiator. Nice thoughts to incorporate the notion of 'chung' ; I'll let others weigh-in on the history/challenges of Asian intercultural relations, though frankly this is the kind of projec tthat represents an opportunity to get past some of those issues. Good work