IMPROVING WALLER CREEK - OVERVIEW
Creating a better Waller Creek experience for UT students and faculty
Call me a Creek Geek.
Waller Creek runs for about six miles through North Austin until it meets Town Lake. The creek has stood the test of time. Its history is one of passion and tragedy, but today it flows through a city and campus that treats it as afterthought, rather than the natural landmark that it is. The city of Austin has taken action to make vast improvements along the creek in the downtown area, and now it's the University of Texas' turn to follow suit.
Ongoing project at the University of Texas Center for Integrated Design
Team: Kate Hodges, Caroline Rock, Grace Kim, Madeline Goulet, Lindsey Thompson, Hannah Kwan, Annie Xue
Role: design research, synthesis, prototyping, and final concept proposal
The Brief:
As a student design team, we were challenged by our professors at UT's Center for Integrated Design to improve the Waller Creek experience. Our mentors gave us total freedom to approach the problem however we wanted, with some guidance along the way. We could choose to design for the entirety of the creek or focus on part of it, and either split into teams to develop multiple designs, or stick together as a group and focus on one potential design solution.
We started with:
How might we improve the experience of Waller Creek?
Then we wondered:
How might we improve the experience of Waller creek for students at UT?
Finally, we asked:
How do we address mental wellness with Waller Creek for students at UT?
We Started With
How might we improve the experience of Waller Creek?
Understanding the History and Background of Waller Creek
Improving the Waller Creek experience requires an understanding of what the past and present experiences are, so we set out to discover the history of the creek and current attitudes and efforts around it.
The Narrative of Waller Creek as Informed by Our Research
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1969 Battle of Waller Creek - The battle was a student protest against the removal of 39 century-old live oak trees to make room for a stadium expansion. Students from all over the university gathered in attempt to save the trees and halt the stadium expansion.
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Waller Creek Framework Plan - The Waller Creek Conservancy has begun work on their plan to create a chain of 5 parks along Waller Creek in the downtown area.
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Campus Tragedy - In the spring of 2016, a freshman Dance student was leaving the Drama Building in the Winship Circle after class at 9:30pm. On her way home along the Waller Creek to her dorm 0.3 miles away, she was assaulted and brutally killed in the creek. The memory of this tragedy haunts many students, especially those who attended UT at the time. In the aftermath of this horrific event, for some the creek has become an infamous symbol of this tragedy and the University has treated it as something to be “dealt with.”
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Then We Wondered
How might we improve the experience of Waller Creek for students at UT?
As you can see, the creek has stood the test of time, but the current state of the creek leaves something to be desired, which is where our team comes in. This semester we have delved into the creek, not quite literally, to explore our problem statement of "how might we improve the experience of Waller creek for students at UT?"
Our journey with the creek so far has included research, synthesis, and exploration into potential design opportunities.
Moving into our primary research, one of the first tools we used was a stakeholder map to help us figure out who we wanted to interview about Waller Creek.
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After figuring out who we wanted to talk to, we began reaching out to people:
We initially sent out a survey to students and alumni about the creek from which we got 100 responses. We conducted 28 intercept interviews by asking people around campus to answer a few questions. We did 5 contextual interviews with participants with a creek walk-along; we received 507 responses from an interactive board we made to gauge student perception about UT, Austin, and nature. We also had nine people complete a packet of activities and questions about their perceptions and daily routines.
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Interview activity packet - Participant plotted their average weekday schedule with their corresponding mood levels, and they plotted Austin outdoor spaces along a spectrum of safety, convenience, and relaxing ambiance.
Who We Talked To - Experts and Students
In order to better understand Waller Creek and all of the plans and current research involved with it, we talked to six experts ranging from the UT Director of Sustainability to the Director of Planning and Design at Waller Creek Conservancy, which allowed us to inform our understanding and research about the creek.
Along with interviewing experts, we also interviewed UT students about their perspectives and interactions with the creek, their routines, and their experience with UT. This provided a different perspective from the more specific, deep knowledge that the experts provided us with.
In order to respect these individuals' privacy, I have not included the names or photos of our interviewees on this website.
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Our initial hypothesis regarding creek awareness was that some of the attitudes students may have about the creek are indifference, apathy, and lack of knowledge.
This was definitely the case when we conducted intercept interviews.
“I don’t know anything about it…” - UT student
“Isn’t it just this area? Oh really? Then I’ve seen it.” - UT student
Even these short, impromptu conversations about the creek affirmed that students knew about the creek, but they weren't familiar with it as the Waller Creek, and they did not express much further interest. In other words, we were growing our awareness of their unawareness.
Creating Archetypes
Based on the intercept interviews, including the ones you just saw, we started to plot students on this archetype map along the axes of “attitude” and “awareness” - from completely unaware to aware, and dislike to like.
We want to focus on the middle column of this archetype map: those who are neutral about the creek. These are the acquainted, the unopinionated, and the unfamiliar. Regardless of their level of awareness, they just don’t have any strong feelings. We’re not trying to turn everyone into a creek geek, but we want to increase awareness and improve the attitude around the creek.
Introducing Our Personas
We have three personas who demonstrate all three awareness levels in the “neutral” category. First is Paul, the passerby. He’s unfamiliar, the lowest level of awareness. He is completely unaware of the creek, which is kind of funny, considering he walks over it every day on his way to and from class and his parking garage. Paul represents the people who said “what’s the creek?” when we intercepted them … on top of the creek.
Next is Amy the Art Student. She’s the unopinionated - sort of aware. Her classes are mainly in the art building, which is nearby the creek. She does see it every day, but she doesn’t really see it as something to be engaged with. Sometimes, she does feel a little uneasy passing by there at night on her way to her dorm.
Lastly, we have Pam the Professor. She is the acquainted; she's been at UT for 10 years and is familiar with the creek, but she doesn't spend a lot of time around it. She works in her office most of the day and really just wants a place to eat lunch and escape outside.
Synthesis
Emerging Insights and Observations
Unawareness and Apathy
Insight: The creek has become nearly invisible even to those who often pass by or over it.
"Is this Waller Creek?" - Student at Waller Creek
"I don't know enough about [the creek] to be concerned." - Liberal Arts student
Perceived Safety Concern
Insight: Students and faculty who spend the majority of their day in east campus perceive the creek as a major safety concern.
"After the incident, I feel less safe going to the creek alone... it could pose a risk for a women sitting alone." - Design student
"It's not safe and needs more light" - Liberal Arts student
Potential Value
Insight: The University needs a way to accomodate for student needs as the heart of campus moves eastward.
"The creek looks like an afterthought" - Director of Sustainability
“We don’t treat it as the central resource that it is. We treat it as something that needs to be dealt with.” - Associate Biology Professor
Digging Deeper
After looking at our interviews, we noticed a recurring theme of nature connecting back to mental health. We wanted to dig deeper into this concept, so we created an interactive perspective board that we set up for 6 hours on campus, and we gathered 507 responses from students.
After collecting all of the answers, we sorted through them and a recurring theme emerged that we had seen in our interviews: Nature and mental wellness.
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What do you do when you feel overwhelmed?
Where do you go to take a break?
We conducted some secondary research on nature and its effects on mental health, and we found an overwhelming amount of studies and data on the topic.
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Experts on Mental Wellness - UT Staff
We were able to articulate a hunch that this project might relate to student mental wellness even from the first person we talked to:
“UT doesn’t have a lot of intentional spaces for students to get a mental break.” - Director of Sustainability
“[The appeal of the creek is that there is] privacy in the midst of this crazy campus . . . a moment of quiet escape.” - Coordinator for the Center of Environmental Research
“Mental health and physical health . . . everyday it becomes more compelling and undeniable” - Director of Planning and Design
Mental Wellness for College Students
“Students who reported poor mental health but did not qualify for a diagnosis were three times more likely to experience academic impairment than students who reported a flourishing mental health state.” - Counseling and Mental Health Center, University of Texas
The research is clear that exposure to even minimal amounts of nature benefits our health and well-being, so how might we implement changes that students could benefit from experiencing Waller Creek?
Finally, We Asked
How do we address mental wellness with Waller Creek for students at UT?
After all of this research and the realization that the core of our research revolved around connecting nature and mental wellness, we changed our problem statement from: "How might we improve the experience of Waller Creek for students at UT?" to "How do we address mental wellness with Waller Creek for students at UT?"
Hills
Following the synthesis of our research, we created three overarching statements to check ourselves against while creating concepts and testing ideas:
Students can take a mental break on their way to class because they feel Waller Creek is a safe space to sit for a few minutes.
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What redirected the university to focus on Waller Creek was the student death, so we wanted to make sure that we included that as a major objective
Students and faculty can retreat to a place for rejuvenation even with a 15-minute break on a busy day.
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Finding solace in nature was a recurring theme across the board for our users, and we wanted to address this due to statistics about the benefits nature can provide in improving mental wellness, and because students have an expectation for an offering of mental health resources and inviting campus spaces.
The University of Texas can be seen as an international leader for supporting student mental wellness by using its natural resources without substantial investment.
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Offering Waller Creek as a student resource for mental health more broadly fits in with the university’s mission that “what starts here changes the world”.
Design Opportunities
In our exploration for potential opportunities, we looked at a map of UT and plotted all of the green spaces on campus. As shown in the map below, there are a lot of outdoor spaces spread evenly throughout campus, so we were confused as to why the creek and spaces around it weren't as high-trafficked as other areas. It wasn't until we began mapping out campus amenities, that a glaring discrepancy between East and West campus emerged.
In the map below, we mapped out all of the dining halls, food and cafes, places providing coffee and snacks, outdoor space and green space. From looking at the map, there's a heat spot on the West side of campus where most of the campus amenities are located. The further East campus travels, the less and less amenities are present, which factors in to students failing to spend time on the east side because they cannot access food, drinks, and seating areas.
Prototyping
We are in the first stages of this phase, and we are currently testing out several different design opportunities in spaces near the creek on the UT campus.
Resources
Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors: http://aucccd.org/support/aucccd_directors_survey_monograph_2012_public.pdf
CMHC: https://cmhc.utexas.edu/wellbeing/wholestudent.html
Anxiety & Depression in Students: 2013 survey