context
Self-care routines are increasingly trending as people strive for success and perfect lifestyles. There are a collection of morning routine videos on Youtube and series of articles where celebrities share their 6am start routines. The idealised portrayal of routines have encouraged people to do more in pursuit of improving ourselves and being healthier.
In 2018 wellness was a $4.2 trillion global industry, more than half the size of all global health spending ($7.3 trillion). Wellness trends are luxurious and encourage consumerist tendencies. Perhaps the current wellness industry is promoting an unsustainable way of living, supporting an obsession of self-optimisation.
How can we do less by embedding mindful acts into our everyday?
How can processes of ritualisation cultivate mindful routine practices that facilitate noticing?
intention, motivation
framework
ROUTINE, RITUALITY, MINDFULNESS, BOREDOM, INTUITION, WONDER
audience
Working young professionals
In preparation for the work/ creative day
Community
Council
Mental Health Organisations
Headspace
Beyond Blue
major project proposal
(n)ever changing everyday
The project intends to cultivate mindful everyday routine practices through a process of ritualisation. It aims to design a space that supports a choreographed performance of actions. It is motivated by the need to engage with moments of slowness and boredom as a way of absorbing, processing and intuitively discovering the nuances of the everyday.
The project will engage with the duality of stable routines and change. It will concern itself with issues of over productivity and ideas of what constitutes success. In addition it will address the importance of well-being and self-care in a time where anxiety and depression are increasingly prevalent.
stakeholders
The project will proceed with a sensitive approach to ensure the design facilitates mindful routine practices without being forceful. It aims to be embedded into the everyday as opposed to an obstruction.
It plans to utilise suggestions that will guide the user to perform everyday gestures with more care and attention. These suggestions will take form as spatial arrangements, a performance or an ensemble of parts that frame specific actions, such as boiling water.
Moving forward the project hopes to explore the role of automation, and how to incorporate moving parts that become dependent on the performer, possibly inventing/ incorporating new daily gestures. Therefore creating a carefully choreographed ritualised routine involving a collaborative performance between people, objects and technology.
site/ situation
proceeding with caution
resolving the project
Model making
Prototyping
Film (Performative)
Animation
Joinery + Kinetics
Drawings
Renders
Podcast/ publication ?
schedule
week 3
Analysis of routines and gestures - specify
site analysis
research ritual case studies
initial design explorations
week 4
Design exploration (in response to gestures and site)
materials testing - tactile
model making
case studies and readings
week 5
Design exploration and development, prototyping, testing
week 6
Design development, prototyping, testing, publication/ podcast?
Mid Semester
Website, Design development, publication/ podcast?
week 7
Finalising details of design, start making final objects, models?
week 8
Finalise design, 3D model, base drawings
week 9
Rendering, filming, website
week 10
Final Draft
week 11
Final Draft Presentation
week 12
Edit
week 13
Edit
week 14
Finalise
week 15
Final Presentation