Grow_To_Gather

Problem Finding - Interview With The Client

Initially, we conducted interviews with previous leaders of Harvard Community Garden, abandoned since the Covid, and the current leader of Somerville Community Growing Center. They both provided us with inspiring insights about what is the role of community gardens and how to sustain a community garden.

Pain Point (Human-Side)

The barrier of establishing and sustaining a community garden comes from multiple aspects, first is about humans - the participator, as they always have issues dealing with how to construct a community garden from the beginning, how to maintain the community garden throughout the entire process, and how to effectively and intriguingly access the info if they are simply curious.

Pain Point (Environment-Side)

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, public space gained new importance for urban residents who seek to interact with their friends and neighbors safely. This inventory of Boston's Privately Owned Open Spaces can be leveraged for temporary public use as an extension of the city's publicly owned spaces.

There are currently 7,200 acres of privately owned open space in Cambridge, many of which are considered urban leftover spaces due to a need for more spatial ideas and creativity. These spaces often become "urban threats," fostering illegal activities, visual discomfort, and problems with accessibility.

Currently, 14 active community gardens are located throughout the city of Cambridge, serving as areas of beautification, vegetable production, and meeting places. The "centralized" gardens are divided into plots and shared by groups of residents and institutions, like high schools, community centers, and Non-profit organizations.

Finding Design Opportunity from Stakeholders

Persona 1

Boston/Cambridge Homeowners

▫ Lack of time and effort to modify and maintain the land they own, frustrated by the visual discomfort in front of their houses.

▫ Hope to open part of the space to the public for a common good.

Persona 2

Local Community Garden Initiatives

▫ Have the wishes to use community garden to bring local community together, but hard to implement a democratic gardening decision.

▫ Hope to use community garden as tools to educate people about environmental knowledge but feel institutional power is less attractive.

Persona 3

Temporary Residents/Students/Visitors

▫ Don't know where to locate the available space even though they want to grow something.

▫ Lack of incentives to start gardening in underused, vacant spaces since they are unattractive in the first place.

▫ Don't have enough knowledge of plants and are afraid of failure in gardening.

Grow To Gather Roadmap

Introducing Grow To-Gather, an app specifically designed for decentralized and co-designed community gardens, starting with a pilot project in Cambridge. Our goal is to enhance the urban gardening experience and promote citizens' engagement in the city. By utilizing this app, we aim to provide biodiversity and pollination, restoring ecological stewardship back to nature. Unlock the potential of your private garden, which covers more area than public parks and nature reserves combined in Cambridge.

Use Case (Low-Fidelity)

Use Case 1 - Find/Annotate Underused Garden Space

Use AR to help you find and annotate the underused vacant space in the city that can be turned into the community garden.

Use Case 3 - Participatory Plant Knowledge Education

When people the seed’s QR code, they can use the AR education program to learn this particular species, their life stages, etc.

Use Case 2 - Participatory Garden Solution Co-Envisioning

When people reach to the underused spaces, they can use the AR growing program to envision how this unpromising space would turn into their customized community garden space.

Use Case 4 - Participatory Impact Showcase

People can tap the garden’s profile book to see how much CO2 it can reduce by the plants growing here, and what kind of pollinators the garden would bring to the whole ecosystem by certain plants.

User Flow

Function Realization With Unity(C#)

➀ AR Raycast Place

➁ Place Indicator

➂ Place Manager

➃ Place Multiple Objects

AR Marker Generator

Functional Demo Showcase

Co-Envisioning Community Garden

During the envisioning phase, the AR growing program will allow you to visualize how an unpromising space can be transformed into your customized community garden. The participatory design process ensures that the final garden-making decision reflects the collective input.

Spreading Gardening Knowledge

In the gardening phase, you will have the opportunity to grow various plant species with your own hands. Through the AR education program, scanning the QR code next to the seeds will provide you with information about each species, including their life stages and care requirements.

Ecological Impact Showcase

Finally, in the harvesting phase, you can reap the rewards of your hard work and even exchange your harvest with local neighbors. The app's map displays quests requested by neighbors, such as watering plants or picking weeds, as well as potential crops available for exchange. By tapping into the garden's profile book, you can learn about the CO2 reduction potential of the plants growing in your garden and the positive impact on the ecosystem through pollinator support. As you engage in these activities, you will earn points based on the amount of Carbon Dioxide you have reduced and the variety of pollinators you have supported. These points will earn you badges that can be used to personalize your avatar on the map.

Wrap It UP

Our product Grow To-gather will embark on a journey to create a beautiful garden, connect with people's local community, and positively impact the environment. Whether the users are experienced gardeners or beginners, this digital tool provides everything they need to get started and keep going.

The advantages of AR application:
‍Immersive: experience complex subject, theories, and concepts;
‍Explorative: hands-on approach helps users’ retention;
‍Self-pacing: suited to all types of learning styles;
‍Active vs Passive: encourages active participation;
‍Engagement: mobile-based AR experience is immediate engagement.

Next Step

Usability Test: We will deliver this project to Lisa, the leader of Somerville Community Growing Center, for the application within the whole community and do more user testing.
Post-Gardening Participation: We will also experiment more about the 'harvest exchange' program in the later phases in order to better facilitate the communication role provided by community gardens.
Share: We will promote our community-engagement product to different community wintin the whole Boston Area and even broader.
Accessibility: We will launch the free mobile app which can run on both Android and IOS devices for more people to access it.

Grow To-Gather

Design Overview

Client

My Role

Tool

Teammate

Duration