Voices of the 4.5 Million: A Sound Visualization of the US Housing Crisis

Voices of the 4.5 Million
A U.S. Housing Crisis Sound Visualization

Thursday, December 13, 12

Our Self-posed Challenge

Tell the story of the US housing crisis by marrying the
data to the personal stories


Concept

Create an installation that visualizes and soniﬁes
(soundualizes?) home foreclosure data using bubbles
marbles beans, and plays stories from homeowners who
have been affected by crisis

Bring the personal and the big numbers together, to give
both pieces of information meaning...


Initial Design

User interface is a
table with bags of
beans, each containing
the representative
volume of a state’s
foreclosures since the
housing crisis began
~January 2007

Homeowner stories
correlating to the
selected state will play
when the beans pass
through the funnel


Revised Design

Feedback led us to
redesign interface as
simply the user moving
the beans via scoop

Also, redesigning the
system as two rotating
arms, that drop the
beans down when full.
These will act as
triggers to play the
homeowner stories


Sketch Model


Second Sketch Model


Acrylic Model

Turns out... this is a
catapult


Inspired by Shishi-Odoshi Fountain Model

Ugly chipboard, but
open body allows
contents to self-
adjust balance


Fountain Model in Action

http://vimeo.com/55056372


Record homeowner stories

Alongside the design development, we as a team researched home
foreclosure data and collected homeowner stories from news
interviews and online sources.

Since most of the stories were written, we recorded fellow students
reading these statements for use in the installation.


Fountain Model: Final Design?

House funnel at top
receives the beans

Two cantilever arms
act as triggers for
the homeowner
stories when they
turn

Receiving bucket at
end

Front View Side View


After building ﬁnal model... Dumfounded panic

Beans, beans
everywhere


Another Revision: Back to the ﬁrst design

Parts from the ‘ﬁnal
model’ design were
repurposed, with
<36 hours to
deadline!!!


Real Final Design


Beautiﬁcation

Within the theme
of homes: a cozy
kitchen look

New trigger
mechanism for
Picture frame homeowner stories
contains name of are two ﬂex
project and data sensors, hidden in
reading the bends of the
chute

Pyrex measuring
cup receives the “Recipe cards” with
beans additional data


Final Installation Video

http://vimeo.com/55451743


Final Installation


Lessons Learned

A big lesson was: focus on the story, don’t waste too much time
on the mechanism.

It’s about what you say and not (always) how you say it.


Next Steps
Were we to continue...

- Partner with an organization that could provide access to real
homeowner voice recordings and detailed data at the quarterly,
annual, and even state-level data

- Create an interface that allows users to choose points of
comparison (ex. Florida in 2006 vs. 2010)

- Design a mechanism that will take that input and automate the
dispensing of beans at accurate amounts

- Re-design the way that homeowner stories are played, so that it
is easier to focus on listening to just one story at a time

Voices of the 4.5 Million: A Sound Visualization of the US Housing Crisis

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Voices of the 4.5 Million: A Sound Visualization of the US Housing Crisis