Choosing a Concept

Following the feedback received from the tutorial session, I decided to focus on developing my first concept - a space saving planter for the urban dweller. It was based on the insight that most people grow their own food due to lack of space, hence there was an opportunity to design a product that would make efficient use of the limited space that the user has available. The feedback I received was that this was the strongest concept, and I felt it had the most scope for development.

My initial thoughts were that the product could take the form of a planter which attached directly to a window, as a third of my survey responses reported they had 'a windowsill or less space'. Aside from this, and a few ideas of what form it could take, I hadn't developed any further. I didn't really know what direction to head in next.

As it was still such a broad concept, I wanted to define more clearly who would use the product and what requirements it would have to meet. At the next tutorial session, this was the feedback I received as well. Therefore, my next step was to create a user profile and draw up a rough product design specification. These are summarised below:

The intended user would be someone living and working in a city. They would typically be a 30-something professional, who works long hours but enjoys cooking in their spare time and tries to follow a healthy, active lifestyle. They would be looking for a product that would allow them to grow a variety of herbs and salads to complement this. They have a small, modern flat, so would require something which uses minimal space and has a clean, simple aesthetic. Ideally, the product would yield the maximum amount of food for the minimum amount of time invested in setting up/maintaining it.

Initial Concepts

After carry out some further research and investigation and examining what products exist, I brainstormed a number of different concepts. I decided to try and focus on the key reasons why people don't grow their own food, and from there brainstorm potential solutions. My chosen three concepts where based on three different areas. The first was device which would allow people to grow your own food if they lacked the space to. I wanted it to utilise wasted space, allowing people to experience growing some of their own even if they lacked so much as a windowsill.

My second concept was based on the insight that people often lack, or feel they lack, the knowledge and skills to consider growing their own food. I brainstormed some potential solutions to this problems, some for use outside and some for inside, that would make the process of beginning to grow your own seem less daunting and encourage more people to try it. 

My third concept was not as well defined. I really wanted to investigate whether it would be possible to grow your own food to genuinely save money and love more economically. It seemed unlikely that anyone without a reasonable sized garden could actually live off of their own produce, but was it possible to make any kind of significant saving? I decided in the end though that this approach would be to difficult to take, and also felt like growing your own food in this way probably wouldn't start with buying the kind of product I'd be developing. Therefore, my third concept or, at the least, area that I wanted to investigate further, was hydroponic growing. I thought it seemed really interesting and would be something I'd possibly want to incorporate into my first two concepts. 

A Garden Visit

I visited a garden to carry out some field research. It was a really good experience and I feel like I now have a much better understanding of some of the problems facing gardeners growing their own food. Here's a summary of a few interesting things I saw:

Seeds: The way seeds are packaged and planted is an important aspect. Seed packets are quite fiddly, and not ideal for storing leftover seeds. Perhaps an opportunity to design a more efficient way of packaging and planting. A new product on the market are seed tapes. These are much simpler to use for the beginner or time pressed gardener.

Protection from the elements: I found out that one of the main problems with growing your own food in Scotland is the unpredictable, often cold, weather. To grow a good range of different vegetables is difficult and so there's a variety of different ways of covering plants. Some of these seemed quite simple and effective, such as the dome planter. Others such as cold frames were more of an investment. Possibly a opportunity to design a large portable cover, that bridged the gap between the small but practical dome and the larger, but more useful cold frame? Could perhaps be a fold away design or similar.

Easy Planting: There were lots of products aimed at making growing your own an easier and less time consuming job. A few good products I saw were seed rulers, used to take the hassle out of measuring were you should plant your seeds. I found out that when growing larger plants it's often necessary to start them off a seedlings before planting them out. There were handy seedling planters which allowed individual seedlings to be easily planted out.

The garden visit was a really useful experience and gave me lots of ideas for products that the more experienced gardener might use to help them grow their own food. I still think I might focus on developing a product for the urban gardener though, as I feel that would be a more interesting area for me. 

A Grow Your Own Survey

To do some market research I created a survey. I hoped it would be completed by a range of people and provide a good insight into the problems people have with their food and the reasons they don't grow any of their own food. I also included questions like 'How much outdoor space you have?' to help me get some figures which I could base my development on.

The survey's been published for about a week and a half now. It's been more successful than I'd anticipated, receiving almost 60 responses. Here is a selection of insights and useful comments that I've collected from the survey:

• The biggest problems people have with their food are; expensive (57%), environmentally unfriendly (32%). About 25% of people also cited problems like poor quality, unhealthy and don't know where it's come from. A few people also commented that lack of variety was a problem.
• Taste was overwhelmingly the most important aspect of peoples food. This was followed by food quality, then healthiness/price. 
• A massive 95% of people said that lack of space was a reason for not growing their own food. 77% said lack of time was a factor, and 59% of people said the convenience of shops was a reason. 50% reported that they didn't know how. It was also commented that some had tried but failed due to lack of sunlight or cold temperatures in their flat. 
• I asked 'What would encourage you to grow your own food. I found the responses could be loosely grouped into 7 categories; space, cost, taste, community, time, knowledge and silly responses! 
• About 40% of respondents reported having a windowsill or less space. 

Lack of Space

Convenience of Shops

Lack of Time

The results have been really useful in identifying the key issues that people face. There are definitely a few key areas that I'll carry forward and focus on while I carry out further research. 

Initial Research

So I've begun by carrying out a bit of simple 'desk research', to gain a better understanding of the problem at hand and find a few areas to research further. From there I'll hopefully have a few insights and specific opportunities identified from which I can begin to develop some initial concepts!

I started off my research by finding a few charities and organisations who are involved in this area. A few useful sources were The Sustainable Food Trust, Soil Association and Sustain.

The Sustainable Food Trust website offered a wealth of information and was a good starting point to help me to better understand what the issues are with food sustainability. A few articles I liked were an interview with Alice Holden, author of 'Do Grow - 10 simple vegetables'. In the interview she was asked 'Why do we need urban farms? There’s always a grocery store around the corner in cities.', to which she gave a very succinct answer about the importance of being in contact with your food in an increasingly urban world. (Interview is here: http://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/alice-holden-do-grow/) Another article talked about the perception of growing your own and sustainable food as a 'middle class' issue, something which would be interesting to look into if I chose to focus on growing your own as a way to eat better for less. (http://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/sustainability-and-class/)

The Soil Association is the UK's leading charity campaigning for healthy, humane and sustainable food, farming and land use. They have a really useful spin off site: sustainablefoodcities.org, which is a campaign 'encouraging public, private and third sector organisations and local communities to work together to improve their food system and to use food as a catalyst to tackle local challenges.' The most useful part was a list of the key issues that the campaign was aiming to address. (http://www.sustainablefoodcities.org/keyissues) 

I'm going to try and use the eight key issues listed as a template for further research, as I feel it gives a pretty comprehensive overview of all the main problems and will help me to focus in on a few of the areas that are most relevant to my project.

Sustain was another useful resource I found. They have a project currently running called 'City Harvest' that's aimed specifically at encouraging urban food growing. (www.sustainweb.org/cityharvest). 

Next steps are:

• Emailing a few of the organisations to see if anyone would be able to answer a few of my questions.
• Reading further into the key areas I've identified from the initial research.
• Carrying out some field research. Find out about community gardening projects or allotments in Glasgow, visit a few to gain a better understanding of the market and identify opportunities.
• Survey people; I've created a simple online survey and have posted in a few forums to try and see what the main reasons are that people don't grow their own food. 
• Research the existing market and what products are already aimed at the sustainable foodie. 
• Perhaps look at some urban gardening blogs.

If anyone would like to fill out my short survey, that would be great! 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZV69MD9

Project Beginnings

The project has begun! Or Phase 2 has at least.

Over the last couple of weeks we have been working in small teams on Project SCOTSMAN. This involved finding, researching and pitching a design opportunity to our classmates, before individually choosing one of the pitched opportunities to carry forward into SCOTSMAN Phase 2. 

There was a lot of variety in the opportunities presented, everything from diabetes to the Dakar Rally, and I felt there was lots of scope for development in a number of the ideas I saw. However, after a bit of consideration, I've chosen to pursue the brief 'Nae Scran'. 

The group pitching the opportunity had identified a problem with the relationship Britain, as well as other developed countries, has with it's food. We rely heavily on imports, waste a lot of what we do buy and are generally pretty disconnected from what we eat. As well as this, the price of food is rising well above inflation and increasing numbers of families are using food banks.

This brief stood out to me as one with lots of potential. I felt that the problem identified is important and often overlooked. Looking into the future, food sustainability can only become more of an issue, so I thought it would be really interesting to do a project in that area. I also thought there would be a lot of scope for research, as the brief relates to a range of issues; economical, environmental, health etc. This brief struck a chord with me as really relevant problem, something which I can relate to and where (hopefully) lots of good potential products exist!