Monday, February 18, 2019

Furniture Arrangement and Behavior [Samantha Brown]

Angela, Stephanie, and I mutually decided to explore the idea of moving furniture at the Roll-It Wall. We moved two pieces of furniture: the peg crate closest to the terrace and one of the ladders.

Certain behavior occurs regardless of the presence of the crate and ladder. Guests remove and add pegs, release balls down the tracks, as well as attempt to get a peg as high up on the wall using their own heights (sometimes kids mistake the wall for a rockclimbing mechanism).

After the preliminary 15 minutes of observation, we commenced collecting data for furniture rearrangement. 

1:25 p.m. Trial 1 | Moved peg crate to underneath wall signage (on the right side of terrace door).

1:40 p.m. Trial 2 | Moved ladder toward wall peg crate was moved to (on the right side of terrace door, but to the left of the crate).

1:42 p.m. A couple of kids notice the crate without moving the ladder or taking out/putting in pegs.

1:47 p.m. A kid with glasses struggles to move the ladder back against the Roll-It-Wall.

     The kid with glasses successfully moves the ladder to the benefit of other kids.

1:50 p.m. Trial 3 | Moved peg crate up directly against Roll-It-Wall (left side of terrace door).

     A couple of younger guests take out and put pegs in the crate.

2:00 p.m. We end our observation.

There are a couple of implications for the effects furniture rearrangement seems to have on guest engagement. Furniture arrangement can affect behavior, as certain furniture (i.e. the ladder at Roll-It-Wall) is quintessential for a specific learning experience. Thus, guests will move furniture to where it's needed if it's missing. 

I was inspired to think of other furniture arrangement possibilities at MOXI, and I wonder what moving the two tables at KEVA and the one table by the terrace into a large KEVA communal table would look like. Would it function the same as when the KEVA tables are lined up in the bridge, would having one big dining-looking area force people to build at KEVA rather than isolate themselves, and could it lead to new structures being built?

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