DANCING PATH — Ike van Vugt

De opdrachtvraag:
Hoe laat ik mensen op een andere manier bewegen op -de gekozen locatie-?
De plek: De Speelhuislaan, Belcrum, Breda

The design challenge: choose a location and change the way people move and behave themselves in it.
The chosen location: my street, the Speelhuislaan in Breda:

^{Dagelijks bewandel ik de eindeloos lange rechte weg de Speelhuislaan in de Belcrum wijk hier in breda naar het station toe. Vaak verlies ik mezelf in mijn gedachten en de repetitieve stap beweging die ik maak en ik ben lang niet de enige, als ik de absente blik van mijn voorbijgangers mag geloven.}
^{Deze straat en dit gegeven zijn de uitgangspunten van mijn project. Ik wil met mijn ontwerp mensen in beweging brengen en wakker schudden uit hun ritmes, en aangezien niets mijzelf blijer maakt dan dansend mijn dag doorgaan probeer ik dit te doen door ze te verleiden tot een kinderlijk speelse dans op het wandelpad.} ^{Ik hoop mensen de mogelijkheid te geven iets van hun strakke aangeleerde manier van lopen en jezelf presenteren los te kunnen laten voor een spontane sprong, waar hopelijk een gevoel van geluk of misschien zelfs inspiratie van naar boven komt.}

Every day i walk this street and its charming middle path between the trees. From my window i see people walking in a straight line, hundreds of times a day. My challenge was to change that. I wanted to make the way people moved across the path playful and unpredictable; the opposite of how they walked across it now, with their heads forward and their steps measured.

I started brainstorming by making some scale models of the street and making random objects to place on the road as obstacles:

I also tried placing different patterns and colours on the road when the idea of placing stickers on the floor to guide people came to mind.

I tried making some footsteps to guide people, and after that thought; why nog make some invitations to place on signs or as stickers next to the road?

The concept so far was to make stickers and place them on the road like this, asking people to dance with me and guiding their steps in a pattern based on one i made by dancing around with paint on my feet:

I figured I wanted something less in your face. I wanted to make people dance, but I didnt want to order them to do it; I wanted them to feel like doing it themselves. This is when I thought of hop scotch patterns. They make people dance! I made some sketches decontructing some hop scotch patterns i made based on more patterns i made while dancing with paint on my feet:

When my concept was made I left out the numbers as a final touch. I did some tests with chalk on the road with and without the numbers, and just the hint of shapes on the floor proved to be enough for people to want to start jumping around. Without the numbers the pattern was also jump-able from both walking directions! I finally placed them on the road: