Published: 2014-06-25
ISBN: 978-91-7519-280-2
ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)
This paper proposes a design anthropololgy of place in the design of services; particularly when designing community based services for the elderly. Drawing on two service design projects located in the Byker area of Newcastle; UK; which brought together Ordnance Survey [OS]; Age UK Newcastle and a Post-graduate Masters programme; in this paper it describes how design methods and practices captured and communicated a sense of place. The paper takes an anthropological perspective to reflect on how these methods make visible and tangible the every day informal networks that support the elderly community within Byker. Finally; the paper considers how this approach contrasts with the UK Government’s perspective that reduces transactions to economic units and questions the role of service design and design anthropology in communicating the values that are so central to weaving place-making; values that cannot be reduced to simple metrics.
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