MFA Thesis Statement -
COFFEE SHOP, ENVIRONMENTAL BEHAVIOR, AND DESIGN
How does social behavior and interaction influence coffee shop design?
Preface:
Oldenburg (1989) describe the unique characteristics of third places in greater detail: Third places exist outside the home and beyond the “work lots” of modern economic production. Coffee shops are one of the conventional third places for social interactions. However, the nature of the coffee shop is changing as the development of the social movements, technology as well as people’s minds.
The aim of this thesis project is to explore how different the future coffee shop would be from conventional third place and how design can make a difference to fulfill patrons’ needs in the future.
Coffee is one of the most valuable primary products in world trade now, which is crucial to global economics and politics.
the story of coffee
And we are now in the Third Wave with the idea "coffee to appreciate", where beans are sourced from farms instead of countries, and the flavor is clean and pure.
"It was a space where people would get together from different backgrounds, different fields of expertise, and share. That is where stimulates ideas. "
--- Steven Johnson, Where Ideas Come From
COFFEE SHOP OBSERVATION (field trip in Spring 2013)
My field trip to Seattle, to explore and observe the most representative coffee culture of America. In each coffee shop I spent about 2 - 3 hours.
Several supporting research questions were:
- Do coffee shop nowadays still succeed as a third place? Who are cafe patrons? What kind of social interactions happen in coffee shops?
- What characteristics and design features attract people and cause the feeling of attachment to space?
- How different the future coffee shops would be from the traditional ones?
Research methodologies included:
Observation chart of store analysis & visitor analysis; medium: paper
Behavior mapping; medium: I Pad
Behavior sequences maps; medium: I Pad
Functional areas diagrams; medium: I Pad
Photos; medium: I Phone4
Furniture drawing and coffee shop scenes drawings; medium: I Pad
3-minute general sound record of coffee shop; medium: I Phone4
Sketch of Store Scenes
es of store design & human behaviors
Key Insights from 15 qualitative Interviews with Cafe Visitors
Data Analysis
Store Analysis
behavioral mapping, functional area diagram and behavioral sequence maps of each observed coffee shop
Visitor Statistics (of 9 coffee shops)
469 Coffee Shop Visitors observed in this study
Research Conclusion & Design Guideline
All the data and notes from both observations and interviews were moved to the process of integrating and reefing patterns that eventually result in design process. From this process, three categories of findings emerged.
- Physical characteristics of the space
Cleanness; Coffee aroma; Warm white and soft white lighting; Branded coffee shops are visually more organized than local owned cafes; Seats near windows and walls are most frequently selected; Mobile workers like to sit by the edges of "white noise" as the level of noisiness help working flow; Wi-Fi workers seek for a decent size table with nearby outlet rather than comfortable seats.
- The social behavior of people who patronized the space
Each coffee shop has a social climate and culture; The physical characteristics of the space, the attitude of the staffs, the personalities of visitors all influenced in the cafe culture; Interviewees prefer to be surrounded by friendly strangers when they come by themselves, a few enjoy the regular encounter in the place; In cities it is more likely to have single visitors rather than couples or groups, and the city coffee drinkers sit for shorter times; People sit longer in local-owned coffee shops than branded ones like Starbucks.
- The feeling and attitudes of coffee shop regulars
One key element in the social atmosphere is the opportunity to linger. Cafe regulars influence the social climate; The physical characteristics also contribute to lingering behaviors; Cafe patrons show the sense of ownership of the space; Being surrounded in a coffee shop build the feeling of connection to the society, it also helps alleviating loneliness; Mobile workers like the easy accessibility of caffeine and the casual lively atmosphere helps finishing works.
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