PACE: New Modalities for Slow Living in Accelerating Times
Having lived in two of the world’s busiest cities, Beijing and New York City, Sherry Wu developed an interest in the ever-quickening pace of contemporary life. But as the world has undergone a dramatic acceleration, there is also a counter-movement to embrace the concept of slow living. Sherry’s thesis, PACE: New Modalities for Slow Living in Accelerating Times, explores the tension between fast and slow modes of living. She identifies the balance between the two modes as a critical area of focus and views this balance based on the relationship between technology and culture.
Sherry identified her design opportunity as exploring how we can use technology to bring not only efficiency but also richness along with culture to create new modalities of slow but efficient living, which could fit into the everyday lives of urban dwellers.
TimeLense: A Speculative Future
Before discussing the new modalities of slow living, and how we can use technology and culture to build a balanced life for urban dwellers, we must look at: “What will happen if the balance breaks down?”
TimeLense is a speculative design project based on the Great Acceleration. In a speculative future where technology is hugely developed, but culture has been lost, TimeLense will be there to help future dwellers experience the senses of the past. With this project, Sherry set out to start a discussion about the balance between technology and culture by amplifying the speculative future consequences of society continuing to develop through the prioritization of speed and growth.
Worn in the speculative world, TimeLense is a device that uses advanced technology to allow users to feel senses from the past. It consists of a glass screen that shows users visions from the past and a headphone that recreates voices. By presenting this way for speculative world dwellers to find culture through the use of technology, Sherry aims to show the consequences of the unbalanced development of technology and culture, and inspire awareness and discussion of the balance between the two.
Pace Master: User Research and Co-Creation
Pace Master is a collective-mapping workshop focused on the current world’s pace of life. The workshop is designed to understand participants’ feelings about the pace of life in contemporary society and to find the common collective attributes and trends among them. It involves having each participant draw a map of his or her typical and ideal pace, and then overlapping the maps to find the collective attributes and trends.
Sherry identified the design opportunity through this workshop to find the balance zone in which urban workers can slow down while maintaining (or even improving) their efficiency and productivity. To allow this to happen, she designed some projects that would create slow but efficient moments for urban workers and students. She identified three critical moments in users’ daily lives as specific design opportunities:
The start of the morning, when some participants (five of fifteen office workers participants in the “fast start” group) feel the most rushed.
Throughout the workday, when most users feel rushed but also want to maintain momentum.
During workers’ lunch breaks, when they seek a slowing-down period.
Based on her goals and findings, Sherry developed three projects to help urban workers have a better pace of life: Aroa, Wanderlust, and Wanderlust Café.
Aroa
Aroa is a service focused on people’s modern morning ritual that transforms the daily morning experience from a stressful one into an enjoyable one. With a platform that invites users to plan their morning routine the night before and an automated service that allows them to carry out their plan the next morning, busy urban professionals can experience an efficient yet emotionally rewarding slow start to their day.
Aroa includes an app that allows users to plan and prepare their morning ritual the evening before. It is linked to a series of breakfast appliances that it directs to provide automated services according to the user’s plan. Aroa also encourages users to reflect on their morning experiences when the morning is done to improve them in the future and use their morning ritual as a routine to build healthy habits. Aroa initiates a moment of beauty and calm, helping users reduce the stress of having to complete a series of disorganized tasks in the morning and become more mindful of the morning experience.
Wanderlust
Wanderlust offers users a digital travel experience. Users can take a fifteen-minute walk to anywhere around the world they choose when they feel tired, providing a quick transition from work to relax-mode. Located in the resting area of offices and schools, the Wanderlust Booth offers an immersive experience through sensory design. It features a glass-free 3D screen that provides a vivid visual experience, a stereo that recreates the sounds of different environments, and a diffuser that emanates the aromas of users’ chosen travel environments.
Adaption to digital times. With the practice of remote work becoming increasingly prevalent in our society, especially in the period of social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, Wanderlust can bring the virtual sensory experience into users’ homes or anywhere they may go. The smartphone attached to their legs captures their movements, providing a customized experience, and connects to any screen.
Wanderlust Café: A Tasting Experience
Wanderlust Café is a travel-inspired tasting experience that allows urban workers to explore new cultures and slow down. Offering efficient technology and vibrant food culture, Wanderlust Café provides users with foods from all over the world and a travel-like experience that gives them a practical and immersive experience in which they can slow down from their fast-paced urban lives.
Wanderlust Café features a creative food ID system and a constantly changing menu that create a scavenger hunt experience for users cultivating their interest in exploring food culture. The café also features a self-service system where they can scan the QR code on the food ID card to get more information on the food they’re interested in and make the purchase. The café also educates users on how to eat foods as the locals do, thereby enriching their experience and honoring the act of mindful tasting. It further provides a collection service through which they can get collections of postmarks and stickers according to the foods they choose with their Wanderlust passport. With all the services provided, Wanderlust Café aims to create a highly efficient but slowly immersive tasting experience for urban dwellers where they can slow down from work and explore the rich food culture of the world.
To learn more about Sherry Wu’s work, take a look at her projects in more detail at sherrywudesign.com.