What Impact Does a Networked Communal Plant Watering System Have On A Sense of Community Cohesion?

Abstract

My PhD is concerned with exploring technology to sup- port cohesion within local communities, whist also bringing their local green environments into focus. Common Roots is a networked system that allows plant watering between homes in a block of flats, and promotes meeting in a com- munal garden over a cup of tea. It challenges the prevailing commercially driven tide of social networking and smart cities, and asks what novel ways can we design the cities of the future, given that people need more than simply to inhabit them, but to live in them. In this paper we describe two iterations of our participatory design development.