For this project, I spent time observing a small community park near my home, focusing on how people use its benches. Through photographing, sketching and short interviews, I wanted to understand how something so ordinary could quietly shape people’s behaviour. I noticed that benches near the entrance, mostly metal ones, were often shared by friends or people waiting. The wooden benches deeper in the park were used differently — usually by people alone, eating, resting or just thinking. Further inside, I found a set of wooden benches with tables where a group of men gathered almost every afternoon to play cards. Women were more often seen pushing strollers or sitting for a short rest. These small patterns repeated every day, revealing how gender and social habits shape how people occupy public space.

What caught my attention most was not only the people but also the traces they left behind. Around the benches, I saw food wrappers, footprints and worn marks on the wood. Even the way people dressed or sat seemed to tell stories. These tiny details said a lot about mood, identity and even social position. A takeaway bag beside a delivery rider’s motorbike, a coffee cup near someone’s briefcase — all of these small signs became visual clues about everyday life in the city. Sometimes, even when people were still there, pigeons would walk between them, picking at crumbs left on the ground. After they left, the birds continued to search quietly, like modern gleaners collecting what humans dropped (Varda, 2000).

I took photographs of these scenes, trying to record both people and what surrounded them — the trash, the marks, the pigeons. These details made me realise that design research can come from observing what others might ignore. The bench surface, smooth at about three-quarters along the seat, showed where people preferred to sit. It became clear that objects remember human habits in their own silent way.

When I asked people to describe how they felt while sitting there, most of them chose warm colours — especially yellow. They said yellow meant peace, comfort or warmth. It was interesting that although they didn’t know each other, their choices were quite similar. Sitting in the park seemed to give everyone the same quiet moment of escape from their busy lives.

My approach was inspired by Georges Perec’s Species of Spaces and Other Pieces (1997), where he writes about the “infra-ordinary” — the small details of everyday life that we usually ignore. Perec suggests that by observing these tiny moments, we can understand how people live and relate to their surroundings. His idea that “to write is to inhabit” made me think about how documenting space is also a way of living in it (Perec, 1997). When I mapped people’s sitting positions, how long they stayed and what they did, I wasn’t only recording facts — I was experiencing the rhythm of the park myself. Perec’s interest in listing and classifying things influenced my visual work. I used different circle sizes to show how long people stayed, and colours to represent their moods. Together, these became a visual map of collective behaviour.

I was also inspired by Agnès Varda’s film The Gleaners and I (2000), which follows people who collect what others throw away. Varda’s poetic and human way of looking at ordinary life helped me see my project differently. I started to think of myself as a “gleaner of images,” collecting small fragments of people’s presence — their answers, their movements, their traces. In a similar way to Jean-François Millet’s painting The Gleaners (1857), which dignifies the overlooked labour of rural women, my project also values the unnoticed gestures and emotions of everyday urban life.

Through this project, I realized that design can reveal the psychological and social meanings behind simple actions. Sitting on a bench may seem ordinary, but it can represent rest, reflection, or even quiet resistance to the fast pace of urban life, gender inequality, and capitalism. In the future, I plan to develop this project into a book that pairs each participant’s photograph with their questionnaire, using images and text to tell their personal stories. I also plan to redesign the questionnaire with more open-ended questions, such as “What does this park mean to you emotionally?” or “Why do you come here?”, so that people can reflect more deeply on their thoughts and experiences.

This experience taught me that design is not only a tool for observation but also for empathy—helping us see hidden narratives within the ordinary, and understand how shared public spaces quietly connect us all.

References

• Millet, J.-F. (1857) The Gleaners [Painting]. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.1

• Perec, G. (1997) Species of Spaces and Other Pieces. Translated by J. Sturrock. London: Penguin Books.

• Varda, A. (2000) The Gleaners and I [Film]. Paris: Ciné-Tamaris.