Can the mood tree work its magic?

I think it is adorable to have a mood tree that whisper how a city feels, imagine how whimsical it is for a tree to silently listen to what people say and thinking from different  technologies. And later to be translated into colorful lights and temperature, it is almost feel like the tree is talking to us, expressing how it feels that day, and asking for a hug to comfort when he feels blue and cold. In a perfect world, that is how I imagine the relationship between the mood tree and people in the city.

But is it really gonna work that way? Putting on our critical hat on and contemplate on how this story could go wrong in so many ways, we urge ourselves to see things from both good and and bad side with hope that we could anticipate the edge cases, reflect, and design better in the future.

How does it look on a day time? 

Our tree works with lights and heat in which undoubtedly will involve electricity and industrial material, not to mention lights work their best at dark. So how we will create that same level of interest in day time as how people come to experience light festivals at night time? One solution is probably to keep the lights and heat on 24 hours, but does it do any good to light the tree up on day time? Will people question the unnecessary waste of energy? And will it cause another overstimulation feeling for citizens who come to parks to escape from that feeling on the first place? 

How does it relate itself to the true ecosystem in the park? 

image source : squirrel face by Jim Finch, Fox by Philip Obermarck, bird from pinterest

Birds, bees, squirrels, rabbits ,foxes! A tree is considered sacred place that offers protections, source of food, motherhood to the nature. With our mood tree spreading across the park, probably couple of them, will this bring positive output for these creatures? Can a bird lives on the mood tree trunk and build a nest? Can squirrels keep their food for the winter? How do we portray this tree building it’s relationships with people and connecting them to the nature at the same time?

How does it build relationships with off park people?

With the tree being at it’s peak hour during the night time and how often people visit parks at night, it is fair to question how much exposure will the mood tree get to build awareness about mental health. Building awareness is a long term process and involved massive effort to actually grow a mindset on people’s brain. With mental health being a sensitive topic for centuries, are we picking the right strategy with the mood tree? What can we do better to rocket the exposure of the tree ? How do we reach out to people who actually don’t pay a visit to parks? 

Incorporate mood tree feeling to people's daily encounter. weather app by pinrotech, digital signage in public spaces

In Conclusion, There so much more we can tweak about our mood tree in the future to create bigger impact on mental health awareness. Educate ourselves to be critical and look at a problem and solution from different angles is crucial for the design process. And finally ,We, Creative Collaborative Confusion team surely learn, reflect, and grow in our process designing the mood tree.