The Bridge: Research

The project began with the very general topic of culture - with a few focus areas.

A DIVISIVE WORLD - The world we live in today often feels chaotic and divisive. I wanted to see why so much societal, moral, and cultural conflict was happening and if there was anything I could do to help bridge the gaps between people of different lifestyles and viewpoints.

EXPANDING PERSPECTIVES - I have been incredibly fortunate to have traveled across the world, so I know from firsthand experience how being exposed to people of different cultures and backgrounds can expand one’s worldview, reduce bias, and help people realize that even the people who live on the other side of the world are still just people.

THE CULTURE OF HAWAII - my dad’s side of the family is from Honolulu, and I’ve always admired how the people there come from incredibly different backgrounds but still manage to get along and live in relative peace with each other. I wanted to see if I could design an artifact that could celebrate, replicate, or embody the spirit of the Aloha State.

INITIAL RESEARCH:WHAT IS CULTURE?

I began with some secondary research on culture’s origins and inner workings, using the internet and the book “Behave” by Robert Sapolsky to educate myself.

HOW DO WE BECOME MORE CULTURALLY EDUCATED?

Once I had a deeper understanding of what culture was and how it worked, I explored how different cultures interact - specifically, society’s previous attempts to unite people of different cultures. I examined how people have succeeded in promoting cultural interaction and diversity, and the factors that prevent them from doing so.

HOW DOES CULTURAL DIVERSITY WORK IN AMERICA?

One piece of feedback I received suggested that I look closer at culture in a specific place that I actually knew - my home, the United States. As divisive as it is now, America has been historically perceived as a multicultural melting pot - I wanted to know why.

FINDING A DIRECTION

I needed to narrow down my topic significantly, so I developed the following problem statements until I was satisfied with the result.

PRIMARY RESEARCH: INTERVIEWS

Having exhausted as many aspects of secondary research as I could think of, I decided to interview a number of local and international students and young professionals, especially those who had moved to America from another country or faraway state where the culture was different from where they were now.

SYNTHESIS

This was the point where I realized that I couldn’t use any culture that already existed in designing my artifact. If I wanted to say something universal about culture, I couldn’t examine just one culture - but I also couldn’t examine every single culture on Earth in order to make a generalization. So I decided to use the one culture that no one actually knows about - extraterrestrial culture - to examine how culture affects design.

CONCEPT

If I was going to use aliens to examine culture, I needed to root my experiment in understandable human concepts. I initially used the idea of aliens adjusting to their immigration to Earth as a catalyst for my artifact - anyone can relate to the idea of moving to a new, unfamiliar place and dealing with the related cultural changes.

REFINEMENT

But I soon realized that even a topic that seemed as specific as alien immigration needed to be narrowed down for me to productively design something to solve a specific problem. So I looked back at my interviews for inspiration.

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