Not in my backyard!

When asked directly, almost everybody wishes to switch to using green energy, such as wind energy harnessed through windfarms both in and outside of residentail areas. But there is a hidden dilemma in this wish: Would I want to have windmills near my house at the cost of damaging the look and feel of my neighborhood?

The goal of this project was to analyze this dilemma and to develop a design intervention that motivates citizens to become actively involved in local decision making on renewable energy. 

The design outcome is the Look-out Point which intends to raise awareness about the ‘certainty of change’ in the surroundings. This physical observation-point invites residents to visit a website that can update them about the potential spatial developments in their neighborhood. On the website, residents can explore images of their neighborhood at three points in time (past, present, and future) from the perspective of a specific observation-point (i.e., the look-out point).

• the past option shows photos retrieved from the archives of the local municipality
• the present option shows the current images of the neighborhood
• the future option creatively illustrates several future scenarios such as having a future wind-farm, or a crematorium, or wider roads in the neighborhood.

Credits

Look-out Point is designed by Willemijn Bins as part of her MSc graduation project at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). I supervised this design project, together with Pieter Desmet, Renee Wever (TU Delft), and Simone Maase (Energie-U), which was collaboratively carried out by Delft Institute of Positive Design and Energie-U. Illustrations above are designed by Willemijn Bins.

Design with Dilemmas
Değer Özkaramanlı
Delft University of Technology
The Netherlands

Contact
d.ozkaramanli[a]tudelft.nl
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