Why even a great idea can fail?

For a long time in road design, the focus was on cars: achieving maximum vehicular throughput was crucial. And now, even as the focus has shifted, as we'll discuss further, we are reaping the consequences:

• Cities are divided due to heavy car traffic.

• Pedestrians face danger even at crosswalks.

• Environmental pollution levels have reached record highs.

• Parks and squares where one could relax are almost non-existent.

The phenomenon of automobile dominance: Where our focus on cars has led us.

Modern trends in urban planning and road design have started to change, albeit slowly and not to the extent desired. Now, the focus of attention has shifted towards pedestrians.

In cities, we've seen the emergence of more pedestrian areas and safe routes for people. Public spaces for relaxation, green areas, sports facilities, and entertainment venues have begun to take shape. Despite the advantages of a pedestrian-oriented approach, it doesn't eliminate some level of chaos. For instance, new sidewalk tiles may look beautiful, as do boulevards with small lawns. However, if you plant grass where people find it more convenient to walk, this may likely lead to two new problems:

A pedestrian-oriented approach: What happens when we don't take situational thinking into account?

Summer

Winter

Instead of beautiful lawns, we have well-trodden paths.

People are unhappy because on these beaten tracks, mud mixes with snow. When you walk on them in bad weather, your shoes get heavily soiled.

Yes, the paradigm has shifted, but the mindset of each individual changes slowly. When designing pathways, engineers rely more on technical requirements and less on experience, empathy, and a dash of common sense. That's why we often end up with a situation like the one in the picture: a tiled road next to an improvised path that emerged because it's more convenient for people to shorten their route this way every day. It turns out that an important factor was overlooked in the design process: the way of thinking of those who live and work near the landscaped area.

Typically, people draw a simple semicircle with rays and a horizontal line, resembling the sun setting below the horizon. The pictures from different individuals will be almost identical.

Let's conduct an experiment.

Now, draw the sunset you saw this week.

Each of us perceives the world uniquely, even when we experience the same event, like a sunset. Context, location, mood, and circumstances all influence how we perceive and remember it. Therefore, our needs can vary greatly.

From this experiment, we can draw the following conclusion:

It often seems that when we discuss a phenomenon, we have a shared understanding. For example, we need to landscape an area and decide where the lawn will be, where to place the takeout coffee kiosk, and where to lay the tiles. However, as we can see, even with something as simple as a sunset, this isn't always the case, let alone when it comes to landscaping a territory or, more broadly, the entire world.

Perception of the same event can vary depending on the context: where we are, who we're with, our mood, whether we're hungry or full. Someone may see romance in a sunset, while another person might feel melancholy, and yet another might find inspiration. Beauty or admiration for a sunset is subjective; each person sees, perceives, and remembers it in their own way.

Soon, we'll discuss why empathy is crucial in the design of medical equipment.

Draw a sunset.

How people usually draw sunsets: fairly similarly.

How people draw the sunset they saw this week. We all perceive the world differently.

Here, the pictures from different people will vary significantly.

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