Independent projects are meant to be done by each of us and create anything what we want as long as there is a meaning, a goal, and a design challenge in each of our project. For my project I want to suggest an idea to re-design bus shelter, in this case TTC bus shelter.
Initial Intention:
In this proposal I would like to develop an idea to re-build a better TTC bus shelter. My intention is inspired by the issues that I have always experienced every time I go to a TTC bus shelter. For example sometimes I always see litters everywhere in the shelter, which makes it look dirty and really smelly, or sometimes I also see a shelter that has a spray paint on it due to vandalism, and that makes it look dirty as well, or also the other thing that always makes me uncomfortable is they don't really keep you warm in the winter, because sometimes the wind comes inside the shelter, which makes it cold. That is why I want to develop ideas to overcome these issues.
Aside from the visible issues, some invisible issues might also be existed, like feeling bored or lonely in a bus shelter. Although I have never experienced these issues but I assume some people can get bored if they wait too long or feeling lonely when he/she is the only one in there. My rough idea for these issues is by having an interactive bus shelter, such as adding a swing, an ad that people can interact, a screen that has TV, a speaker with music, video games etc.
The other reason why I wanted to do this challenge is because I want to be an industrial designer. So this design proposal will help me build my portfolio, which is really beneficial for myself.
Consequently, with the issues and problems kept in my mind, I want to solve the challenges and create a solution to overcome them by developing a new, cool looking TTC bus shelter through designing.
Possible Ideas:
There might be more than one idea, but for now I will just explain in short the main features of the design.
So, my rough idea is to make the TTC bus shelter an interactive, unique, and cool-looking shelter for the public. I wanted the shelter to not be just a shelter, but I wanted it to be like a small home that people can stay comfortably.
First of all I wanted to add a floor to the bus shelter because right now it always stays with the sidewalk. The floor can be In any materials, but it has to be white, or other warm colours because I want people to stay comfortably through warm colours. In fact, this is based on a psychological theory that colours impact people's emotion. Hence, colour is good for people.
The second task is I wanted to add more seats to the shelter. I know, it is not possible if the shelter is too small, however I came up with another idea: create something that can be seated by many people. This idea was inspired from a bus shelter but not in a form of a bus shelter. So what they did is they tried to create a shelter from block of shapes, and they used the surface of the shapes to make people sit on them. Like this:
The third one is I wanted to add interactive features to the bus shelter, like a small TV screen, a pair of speaker that play radio, or even an interactive screen that can play a simple video game. This will make people less bored.
The last important thing is I wanted the shelter to have colours, lights, and security camera. So the shelter will not just be cool and unique but it will also be safe because there is a security camera.
Media:
Possibly, I want the rough idea to be designed in Illustrator because it is resizable and there is so much freedom in it, after that I may take the result to Photoshop for some retouching, and then finally if there is time I want to render the final design in a 3D software program like Google SketchUp.
