Thursday morning me and my colleagues from social design “Municipal” project, went on a 2-hour walk to experience Emmen – a municipality in Switzerland.
We started going up the main street. There were many hairdressing/beauty salons, supermarkets, a gym, graffitis on the walls and quite a few cafes, mostly asian. Businesses’ signboards were large, vivid and “screaming”, with many details – maybe to attract more people. Planes, trucks, buses, cars were passing by all the time, creating disturbing industrial noise and dust – maybe that’s why most windows in houses near to the road were closed.
Unlike the main street, the sleeping quarter was quiet, almost with no people around. We pointed that
- there were many “privat” signs, so people seemed protective of their properties, wanting to clarify that something is theirs;
- rubbish bags were left on the street near the road;
- many rubbish sorting places were located nearby;
- some people seemed to have storage and parking issues.
Afterwards, we observed an ordinary school/ kindergarten. It had separate buildings for kids of different age and a playground. Unlike this school, another school we encountered wasn’t open, but we saw an old-fashioned Soviet type hall through the glass door – for me it looked a bit sad.
As we were returning to the Hochschule, I was wondering about my Emmen experience. It wasn’t very uncomfortable but wasn’t delightful as well. I felt like I didn’t get to know this municipality very well, but I for sure saw some social design issues to think about.