The Infant and Parent Urban Experience: Enhancing daily life and development through personal-scale interventions

Item

Title
The Infant and Parent Urban Experience: Enhancing daily life and development through personal-scale interventions
Description
Humans develop 90% of their brains during the first five years of life, a time where they are the
most physically vulnerable they will ever be. Thus, it is both surprising and concerning that the
built environment does not revolve around such a critical period. The longevity of a city and
adulthood far preponderates the duration of infancy, causing architects, planners, and builders
to design for the necessities and ergonomics of older and larger humans. With infant and parent
ecologies more intertwined than ever before, the physical and environmental challenges a city
poses ultimately pushes families to look for an easier, safer and more affordable environment to
raise a child in.

This thesis proposes artifact solutions that make use of varied technologies and analog
interactions to improve the daily life of the urban family. A review of developmental milestones,
an infant proxemic analysis, and a design thinking approach for identifying problems in the
urban fabric suggest that interventions at the personal space scale can significantly facilitate
care, increase mobility and improve safety. Some of the solutions are: for the micro-apartment,
a furniture-scale baby station to replace the baby room; for the subway station with no elevator,
a robotic self-walking stroller that can smoothly navigate stairs; for the downtown open-plan
office, an office chair harness that promotes skinship while allowing parents to engage in focused
work. Ultimately, these solutions make cities more accessible to both infants and caregivers.
Creator
Roldan Castro, Maria Elena
Subject
Baby Industry
Baby Products
Childhood
Children
Infant
Urban
Design
Contributor
Sayegh, Allen
Witt, Andrew
Date
2021-06-11T06:57:17Z
2021
2021-05-18
2021-05
2021-06-11T06:57:17Z
Type
Thesis or Dissertation
text
Format
application/pdf
application/pdf
Identifier
Roldan Castro, Maria Elena. 2021. The Infant and Parent Urban Experience: Enhancing daily life and development through personal-scale interventions. Master's thesis, Harvard Graduate School of Design.
28541129
https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37367880
Language
en
Item sets
Graduate School of Design