Polli_Nation
RCA x EY x Nesta x London Borough of Barnet
Academic Group Project
Beyond the integration of immigrants and natives in multicultural cities is pollination of social and cultural values to create tolerant intercultural cities.
Context.
As immigrants in London my partner and I struggled with a sense of belonging to the city, we never felt integrated.
Our project looks at the next stage of integration of immigrants in multicultural cities. For this we defined a theory of pollination that will help enable interculturalism in multicultural cities through sharing. Following the same, we designed a hospitality service that utilizes the pollination theory in food to hardwire sharing experiences and cultural norms leading to tolerance among people.
London is Multicultural
London is multicultural, a third of its population is foreign born, it houses 270 nationalities and speaks 300 different languages. It is one of the most diverse cities on the planet, and also one that has seen migration the earliest. It has flourished due to its migrant workers and their culture. But now as these statistics suggest more than 50% of people in the UK believe that there is too much immigration.Over 50% of immigrants first and second generation have said that they have been discriminated against, and it only gets worse with time.
How can design facilitate better integration of Immigrants and Natives in Urban Environments?
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Through our observation and research we saw there are 4 types.
They are either struggling to fulfill basic needs,
embedding into community,
plotting their lives in the new country
or already thriving like many 3rd gen immigrants and natives.
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What is more interesting is that their individual hierarchy of needs can be seen as inversely proportional to the collective social cohesion of communities. Which means that the more their individual needs are fulfilled, the more likely they are to be an active part of a cohesive community
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When the same is observed within space, lets take the city of london as the infinite staircase as seen in the image below.
We now see that the distance is greatest when embedding and plotting. This is due to the realisation of different goals and financial inequity between different types of immigrants and natives. It's also here that they are developing their sense of belonging and love within communities, and as observed, here is where they are seperated the most due to their starting points.
Pollination Theory
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Main characters that make the cross-pollination process happen.
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What the agent carry from one place to another.
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Where the culture and identity are from.
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Where changes that have been made from pollination happen
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Where immigrant gathers
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Can help or disrupt the pollination process
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Big scale of impact that can create change in the pollination flow
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Big movement or waves that lead the agents to migrant
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Can help or disrupt the pollination process
Insight
London has already seen a lot of integration and has urbanized through it, but now its deurbanizing owing to settlements such as Indians in Wembley, Koreans in New Malden and more. What London requires now is Pollination
Pollination happens as bees collect nectar to develop their society within their hives. Something similar happens when we look at the development in human society through the needs perspective. Pollination is when through common mechanisms of daily lifestyle people share their cultural values with each other and involuntarily create tolerant bonds between themselves even if they are very different people. It is different from deliberate integration where activities are created for deliberate sharing that may lead to resistance.
Opportunity.
Opportunity.
Food is the most readily shared pollen. It brings people together
Through a fairly long survey and kindness of over 45 people, we conclude that it's food. Food has been one of the most successfully integrated artefact of culture across communities and ethnicities. But what is it about food that brings people together? We spoke to Dr. Maayan who is an expert on social integration. She says, “As seen in children of new immigrants who encounter different people from a myriad of ethnicities in their schools, it's shown that they feel most accepted when they share food that they have carried from their homes with their peers and the peers also accept it and react to it.
“How can we use the mechanism of pollination to create services that enable co-evolution?”
Tiffin box is food as pollen.
Inspired from the concept of pollination and our own cultures which are Thai and Indian, we thought about if a person, immigrant or native, bee or insect is an agent then what can be their pollen that they can carry with them. The answer was a tiffin, a travelling lunch box split into units of food made to be eaten by the self and makes it easy to share with others that bring people closer. While growing up we have seen hundreds of people carrying identical yet personalised tiffins that share the same form but different contents that open different worlds on the lunch table over mid-work day conversations.
We step back to analyse the function and ergonomics of the tiffin box which vertically has been used to stack and store a variety of food. But horizontally it contains the nature of unstacking rituals that open for casual sharing and exchanging food. Which we want to emphasise and develop During the designing process, we combine the existing function of the tiffin box with holistic food curating service along with crafted food selection journey to the space for sharing experience.
Service Proposition
A hospitality service in a semi permanent pavilion with open circulation of people. Where semi-open curation of experiences using tiffin boxes and co-cooking experiences meant for people in closed spaces are orchestrated. All in an effort to align them to common efforts, experiences and goals to increase cohesion.
Introducing N-Sery.
Compared to where people are eating now our service shares some similarities with other hospitality services but what make N-sery different from a market hall, restaurant, and community kitchen are dynamic menu, inclusive food community, proximity to office area, cost effective, available for corporate events, and most importantly hardwiring sharing style of service . As a lovely owner and head chef of a small restaurant we spoke to, auntie Normah said “There is a philosophy in sharing, it’s the way you can develop yourself and know that you can tolerate. You learn to adapt to other cultures and that’s where you get the curiosity to find other people including the values they portray.” Hence our service put emphasis on sharing on the table and also off the table from the food that we sourced from different areas in London. These strings of connections and stories later develop into a network of sharing experience.
We are not changing the eating ritual, we are just shaping it.
Impact
With N-sery we are trying to break the box through interactions, the design is in the background, we hardwire sharing to give people freedom, options and build conversations about the land they come from, not the box they are being put into. As we look at the short term we just want people to enjoy, experiment and have a good time. Through this slipping in cultural literacy derived from conversations that they have and beyond this is also where its beyond our hands is where they make it all a habit and are led by curiosity, not judgement. All in order to enable interculturalism. We vetted this with our Nick Wilsden from Nesta and he also showed great confidence in the service from a social impact perspective.
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The end goal of our service is we want to make the tiffin become part of the daily habit to embrace the value of food sharing for the urban dweller. We understand people take time to form a new habit so we are planning to start with something small by making people feel familiar and comfortable with the tiffin model then it will start forming an eating ritual that later will become part of their lifestyle.
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The collection of various recipes from our co-cooking space will be stored and shared on our digital platform. Which those data will be stored in categories so it's easy for access and usage. Those grouping of resources in our online platform will create the network of people that later develop into a micro community.
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Our plan is to start with 1 pavilion located in the office area where it’s easier to attract our target group. Then more pavilions will start to populate in different parts of London. Since each pavilion will contain different food related activities that create the new culture around eating and cooking. Once the pavilion becomes part of all London neighbourhoods, it can connect not just people and resources but also culture from different areas. The pavilion will not only bring social cohesion to the community but also nourish the lifestyle of all urban dwellers.
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Our mission through this service is to be a catalyst to the pollination process because we believe that creating services that enable pollination in multicultural cities and shape rituals will lead to tolerant intercultural cities
“There is a philosophy in sharing, it’s the way you can develop yourself and know that you can tolerate. You learn to adapt to other cultures and that’s where you get the curiosity to find other people including the values they portray.”
— Auntie Normah, Owner & Head Chef, Normah’s Cafe