The Design of Wandering

Wandering around, doing nothing, looking at passersby, must be one of the most popular activities (or rather, inactivity) in the world. It’s widely available, rarely has a dull moment, and often amongst people’s dearest memory of a city - despite difficulties in professional circles to discuss it seriously and precisely.

The Design of Wandering is a rigorously lighthearted study of the ways people intuitively adapt, exploit, and react to the architecture and objects around them as they navigate the occupy the city. Why do they stop? Where do they sit? What do they look at? What do they think about? Is it possible to move beyond the singular pursuit of function and efficiency when designing our cities?

Given the state of wandering’s elusiveness to rigidly structured research, i.e. one must wander in order to study wandering, we undertook three months of immersive research in Rome with the support of the American Academy and British School. Using objet trouve from our daily life, we documented 30 design observations/ strategies for designing spaces where people can encounter moments of respite, pause, and serendipity.