How much will citizens use the Walworth Living Room? We have three sources of data on which to draw: (1) actual use during the prototyping phase; (2) demand for public spaces; (3) potential Living Room supply.
Actual Use
During the autumn of 2019, the design team recorded visitors and conversations taking place between visitors in the main hall of the All Saints Hall. The following graph summarises the data for three hour segments during Wednesday afternoons.
As can be seen, there are roughly 0.6 conversations taking place for every visitor coming into the Living Room, with a mean of 44.1 visitors and 27.9 conversations over the afternoon segments.
Supply
The following table illustrates one way in which the Living Room space could be used. This model uses learning from the first test runs in All Saints hall to maximise connection and conversations. Specifically, it:
- Extends the time of the Living Room to being open each day
- Uses shorter segments to allow for more activity, and more choice for users
- Staggers activity so that there will be increased interaction during entrance and departure from activities
- Seeks an optimal balance between activities for citizens and activities delivered by public systems for citizens.
In this model, there are 1,750 visitors per week (circa 1,000 conversations), or 350 per day (circa 200 conversations).
Demand
The third sources of data comes from what is known about numbers of people using existing public institutions. Three markers are used:
- Mean use of public libraries in England runs at roughly 200 per day
- Mean attendance at GP surgeries runs at circa 140 per day
- The teepee erected by Camerados in Blackpool hospital attracted a mean of 155 visitors each day (14,923 over the 96 day installation).