Lucy Edwards
BA Design‘Throughout my life, I have always possessed a keen eye for aesthetics and a natural inclination towards creativity. As a child, I would spend hours meticulously arranging objects and sketching my visions. Over my time here at university, this innate curiosity developed into a deep appreciation for the principles and theories that underpin effective design. Design wasn’t my first choice when I started university, I came to Lancaster to study Fine Art with a minor in design. However, the first lecture I had for design sparked an interest in me that I couldn’t ignore. The interdisciplinary aspect of this degree has allowed so many aspirations for future careers to be introduced to me, that I never knew were possible. This includes urban design. Ultimately, my goal is to contribute to the creation of cities that are liveable, resilient, and visually captivating. I aspire to work alongside urban planners and architects to bring about positive change in urban environments. Sustainability and Liveability within cities has become a big passion of mine and I want to be able to travel the world to experience these urban spaces for myself and continue the research I started within my dissertation.’
LICA140 Design for Good
I completed this project within my first year of university. The aim was to identify design-led opportunities for social good in the Lancaster region. As a group project, we identified growing social needs that either have (or have the potential to have) impact on the wellbeing of Lancaster residents. Within the project, we looked into brownfield sites throughout Lancaster and how they could be refurbished in order to help them become useful to the community, retain the city’s history, and bring about social good. We focused on catering to students due to the large population of this demographic in the city.
This project was completed within my second year at university. It followed the brief of the RSA student design rewards. Within the competition brief, you could choose from 9 different sub-briefs, from which I focused my project on no.5 (collective imagination). The question I had to answer was How might we build the capacity and capability of local communities to collectively imagine the future they desire? To help people gain a better control of their future and the communities, I designed an organization (URBANmentor) that informs people about what is going on in their surroundings and how to have a say in it. There is also a project section of the organization where the community helps build a project (big or small) to pitch to councils etc.
The aim of this project within this module, was to develop an innovative design concept for a project or service that addresses a specific issue associated with Food Systems. Within my research, I discovered a challenge with the production factor of the food systems within developing countries. I discovered that countries, such as south Africa struggle with drought, which means they don’t get a lot of rain fall or water sources for their crops. With developing countries in mind, I developed upon the idea of a Hydro panel that would be manufactured locally and gifted through water aid.
LICA300 Dissertation
My dissertation looked into the topic of urban design and sustainability vs liveability. I asked the question of ‘Throughout recent years, the nature and relationship between sustainable and liveable urban development has become rather ambiguous; this is due to society constantly changing and evolving. Is it possible to combine the two together to create cities that are both liveable and sustainable?’ For my primary research, I conducted a workshop where I got participants to take part in numerous activities. One of these activities was a card sort, within this I got the participants to rank factors of sustainability and liveability to see whether they would want to live in a city that is more sustainable, liveable or a mixture of both.
