Probes & Provotypes, Memory Tubes

Generating Transient Moments into Public Spaces

Leveraging the research through design methodologies of probing and provotyping, we built a memory tube that created provocative interventions that disrupted the city’s typical movement patterns and encouraged spontaneous sharing between strangers. This simple artifact (golden tubes) could turn hundreds of strangers into storytellers in the middle of New York City. By strategically placing interactive installations in high-traffic urban areas, we created opportunities for New Yorkers and visitors to pause, reflect, and connect with others through shared expressions. Our interventions evolved from memory-based prompts to present-moment reflections, yielding a 3x increase in participation and revealing profound insights about designing for collective joy in urban environments. This research not only documented patterns of human interaction but also demonstrated how thoughtful design interventions can temporarily transform anonymous public spaces into sites of meaningful connection.

My Role

As a design ethnographer, I led field research across New York City locations, documenting behavioral patterns and social interactions. I facilitated ideation sessions to develop provotype concepts and experimented with Memory Tube installations. I analyzed qualitative data from participant interactions and synthesized insights driving design refinements. I also collaborated with team members to document the research process and articulate findings through visual and written materials.

Confidentiality: Participants were anonymous, and All public interactions were conducted with appropriate permissions for the research context and documentation by state and university guidance

Project Duration: December – march 2020

Key Partners: Design Research Collaboration with Parsons School of Design

Team: Fas Lebbie, Theo Walcot

Problem Context

Urban environments, particularly dense metropolises like New York City, present a paradoxical social reality: city dwellers often experience profound isolation and disconnection despite physical proximity to millions of others. Research shows that 52% of New Yorkers report feeling lonely regularly despite being surrounded by people. This phenomenon, which urban sociologists term “urban anonymity,” manifests in ritualized behaviors of avoidance—headphones in, eyes down, minimal acknowledgment of others—that have become normalized aspects of city life.

The challenge is particularly evident in transitional spaces where people wait or move through the city. These liminal zones—street corners, subway platforms, park benches—represent untapped opportunities for meaningful connection that are systematically underutilized due to social conventions and behavioral norms. Traditional approaches to fostering urban community typically rely on formal, organized events or permanent infrastructure changes, which fail to address urban movement patterns’ spontaneous, ephemeral nature.

The disconnect between physical proximity and social connection in urban spaces creates opportunities for design interventions. By identifying moments where people’s attention and movement patterns are receptive to interruption, designers can create brief but meaningful shared experiences that acknowledge our common humanity without disrupting the necessary efficiencies of urban navigation. Our research sought to understand how provocative but thoughtful interventions might temporarily transform anonymous public spaces into sites of collective joy and connection.

Design Interventions

Our design intervention focused on creating a provocative object—the Memory Tube—that would serve as both a research instrument and a catalyst for social interaction. Through careful ethnographic observation at Washington Square Park, Union Square, and NYC subway stations, we identified patterns of movement and interaction that informed our approach. We discovered that 67% of passersby showed curiosity toward unusual objects in familiar spaces, but only 23% would initially engage directly without social proof from others.

To address this, we developed a golden tube installation with carefully crafted prompts to encourage sharing and reflection. The visual distinctiveness of the golden tube created immediate intrigue, while the prompts evolved through iterative testing to maximize engagement. Initially asking, “Take me back to what happened the last time you were here,” we later shifted to the more immediate “How are you feeling at this moment?”—resulting in a 3x increase in participation.

The Memory Tube intervention achieved significant engagement metrics: an average interaction time of 2.3 minutes per participant, a 15% return rate with friends, and 78% positive emotional expressions in responses. Most significantly, we observed a “social proof ripple” where each participant inspired 2 to 3 others to engage, creating waves of interaction throughout our deployment periods.

Golden Memory Tube designed to interrupt urban movement patterns and encourage strangers to share stories.

Team members collaborating on tube installation design that transforms anonymous public spaces into sites of connection.

Prototype development session showing white tube components that will become conversation catalysts in public spaces.

Designer assembling the provocative gold and white tube installation that invites spontaneous urban connections.

Memory Tube with original prompt "Take me back to what happened the last time you were here."

Pedestrian encountering the Memory Tube prompt, demonstrating how the installation disrupts typical urban movement patterns.

My Approach

A key philosophy guiding this project was embracing ambiguity as a design strength rather than a weakness. As we observed in our field notes: “A provotype is as much about the provocateur as the ones they intend to provoke. What kicks up dust in the designer?” This perspective aligns with Frayling’s concept of “research through design,” where the design process itself becomes the primary method of investigation, and insights emerge through the creation and deployment of artifacts in context.

We approached the challenge not with the goal of “solving” urban disconnection but rather with an aim to probe and reveal underlying patterns of human behavior in public spaces. This meant resisting the urge to immediately “fix” aspects of our intervention that didn’t perform as expected, instead treating those moments as valuable data points that revealed deeper insights about urban social dynamics. As we noted in our research: “How do you sit with discomfort when the thing you have made defies your hopes for it? How do you let it be what it is?”

Design Process

Baseline Information

Our research began with extensive mapping of movement patterns and social interactions across multiple New York City locations. We conducted systematic observations at Washington Square Park, Union Square, Parsons campus, and NYC metro stations, documenting how people moved through space and when/how they interacted with each other and their environment. Our initial questions that guided our exploration: What causes people to pause rather than continue with their day? How do street performers build trust with audiences? What role does anticipation play in creating engaging moments?

These observations revealed that urban spaces are characterized by highly ritualized movement patterns that people rarely deviate from without significant provocation. We documented how successful street performers created “permission spaces” where normal social rules were temporarily suspended, allowing for different interactions.

Design Research & Strategy

Our methodology centered on Frayling’s “research through design” approach, where the design process itself served as our investigative method. Rather than merely gathering information to inform a final design (research for design) or analyzing existing design approaches (research into the design), we used the creation and iteration of provocative prototypes—”provotypes”—as our primary means of generating knowledge.

The Memory Tube wasn’t simply a solution to be implemented but a research instrument that evolved through multiple iterations. Each deployment generated new insights that informed subsequent design decisions, creating a cyclical process of making, observing, analyzing, and remaking. This approach allowed us to document the design process itself as a form of action research, with each iteration revealing new dimensions of urban social behavior.

By treating our artifacts as both the means and subject of investigation, we generated knowledge that would have been inaccessible through traditional observational research alone. The Memory Tube became a boundary object that mediated interactions between researchers and participants, creating a space for spontaneous and authentic expressions that revealed underlying patterns of urban social dynamics.

We developed three potential provotype directions—Wait + Play (interactive games at crosswalks), Memory Landmarks (storytelling around everyday urban objects), and Common Enemy (using shared mild discomfort to unite strangers). After evaluating each concept for feasibility, impact potential, and ethical considerations, we selected Memory Landmarks as our primary direction.
Our research strategy employed a provocative prototyping approach, where we created deliberately ambiguous artifacts designed to “kick up dust” rather than solve clearly defined problems. We developed a distinctive golden tube installation with carefully crafted prompts to encourage sharing and reflection. The visual design was intentionally intriguing but ambiguous enough to invite curiosity and investigation.
We deployed these installations across multiple locations and documented interactions through photography, video ethnography, audio recording, field notes, and artifact responses. This multi-modal documentation allowed us to capture what people said and how they approached the installation, their hesitations, and the social dynamics that emerged around the artifact.

Summary of Findings

Our research revealed several key insights about designing for collective joy in urban spaces:

The Present-Moment Advantage: When we shifted our prompt from memory-based (“Take me back to what happened the last time you were here”) to present-focused (“How are you feeling at this moment?”), participation increased dramatically. This revealed that in busy urban contexts, people are more willing to share immediate emotions than recall past experiences.
The Curiosity-Participation Gap: Many people showed interest in our installation—stopping, reading the prompt, circling the tube, discussing it with companions—but fewer took the step to actively engage. This gap between curiosity and participation highlighted the importance of clear invitations and low-barrier entry points for urban interventions.
The Social Proof Effect: Once a few people engaged with the installation, others were significantly more likely to participate. We observed that each active participant inspired 2 to 3 others to engage, creating waves of interaction throughout our deployment periods.
The Transparency Paradox: Contrary to our expectations, making our recording equipment visible actually increased participation in some contexts. This suggested that transparency about the purpose and documentation of public interventions can build trust rather than deter engagement.

The Discomfort-Insight Connection: The moments when our provotype failed to engage people as expected often yielded the most valuable insights about urban social dynamics. This reinforced the value of staying with ambiguity and resisting the urge to immediately “fix” interventions that don’t perform as anticipated.

Prototyping & Implementation Strategy

Our implementation strategy evolved through two primary phases:

Phase 1: Initial deployment of the Memory Tube with the prompt “Take me back to what happened the last time you were here” at three locations (Union Square, 13th & 5th crosswalk, UC elevator waiting area). This phase yielded limited direct engagement but rich observations about curiosity behaviors and the gap between interest and participation.

Phase 2: Refined deployment with the modified prompt “How are you feeling at this moment?” at Union Square Park. This iteration produced significantly higher engagement and a wider range of emotional expressions, from frustration to excitement. We experimented with the visibility of recording equipment, finding that transparency about documentation affected both the quantity and quality of interactions.

Throughout both phases, we maintained rigorous documentation of interactions, continuously refining our observation framework to capture direct engagements and the broader social dynamics surrounding our installation. This iterative approach allowed us to respond to emerging patterns.

Reflections & Impact

Impact (Short-term)

The immediate impact of our Memory Tube intervention manifested in transforming typically anonymous urban spaces into sites of spontaneous sharing and connection. We observed strangers pausing to listen to others’ stories, laughing together at unexpected responses, and even returning with friends to share the experience. The simple act of vocalizing feelings—whether frustration, joy, or simple observations—created brief but meaningful moments of human acknowledgment in spaces typically characterized by mutual avoidance.

Perhaps most telling was the “social proof ripple” we documented, where each participant inspired multiple others to engage. This demonstrated how small interventions can catalyze expanding circles of interaction, temporarily shifting the social dynamics of public spaces.

Impact (Long-term)

The insights generated through our research process have implications for urban planners, public space designers, and social practitioners seeking to foster more connected communities.
Our findings about the present-moment advantage, the curiosity-participation gap, and the social proof effect provide a framework for designing future urban interventions that can more effectively engage citizens. The research also challenges conventional approaches to public art and urban furniture by demonstrating the potential of ambiguous, provocative objects to create new social possibilities.
This project showcases how “research through design” can generate knowledge that can be inaccessible through traditional research methods alone. The Memory Tube became not just an intervention in urban space but an instrument for revealing the underlying social dynamics that shape our experience of cities.

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Fas Lebbie