This past week in lab, we explored several possible topics to study in our situated projects. One of the biggest problems our lab teams collectively faced was how to frame our topic with a huge, global question. It was easy enough to bring the problem outside of Portland, but it was a challenge to address the underlying problem. For example, we want to do our project on equitable access to urban greenspaces. Our initial framing question asked, “How do urban greenspaces contribute to gentrification?” However, though our further discussion in lab and class, we realized that this, while still a big problem in the the United States and several other first world nations, was not close to being on the same level as the big questions needed to frame our project and generate interest.
The biggest flaw of our initial question was that not everyone cares about urban greenspaces and gentrification. This practically a nonissue in much of the world; it’s hard to care about gentrification when dealing with more important issues, such as public health. Also, this only applies to the percent of the population living in urban areas with the capacity for greenspaces. People living in, for example, rural communities or in arid desert areas will not hold the same interest in this topic. We needed to scale everything up to a global level.
Instead of looking at urban greenspaces, we could look at the relationship between the built and natural environments and what role the natural environment play in our built environment. I think this gets at what makes urban greenspaces so interesting while being applicable on a global scale. Similarly, instead of gentrification, we can broaden our frame to equity in general.
In addition, our initial question was descriptive, stating only “how does x relate to y?” with maybe a little evaluative intent, wondering if urban greenspaces are a general good or bad. This is not particularly interesting and does not translate well to having larger implications. Ideally, we want our framing question to be evaluative or instrumental in nature.
Combining these different elements, several framing questions can be created:
- How can the natural environment be better integrated in the built environment? (Where better = more equitable)
- Should the natural environment be more integrated or separated from the built environment?
- What role should equity play in determining the built environment?
These are some preliminary questions that broaden the scope of our project. From here we’ll have to figure out the one we want to go with (or create a new one) and help use it to define our focus question and what we really want to study moving forward with this project.