Design for Sport

Anxo Cereijo Roibás, Emmanuel Stamatakis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780566088599
• eBook ISBN: 9781351945165
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Design for Sport shows how socially responsible design can contribute to make sport practice widespread in the general population including disadvantaged and hard-to-reach groups, and those that have been traditionally excluded such as the elderly, disabled people, those living in deprived areas and from lower socioeconomic strata plus certain minority ethnic and religious groups. Contributions from around the world provide compelling case studies and an international perspective. While the main benefit from expanding sports practice in developed societies would be reduction of chronic disease rates and social inclusion, in the developing world where political instability and conflict are more common, the authors look at how sport can have other functions, such as a means of post-disaster relief. They discuss how Participatory Design (PD) techniques and appropriate ethnographies can be implemented in order to better understand users' needs and requirements as in the case of Paralympic sport where the increased sophistication of equipment used has evolved to meet the demands of the athletes. Reflecting the multi-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary nature of design for sport, the book also features case studies that look at environmental design to improve sport accessibility, social wellbeing, economic development and environmental sustainability.

PART 1
Introduction, History and Future

Introduction: The Case for Socially Responsible Design for Sports

Anxo Roibás, Emmanuel Stamatakis, Ken Black

Historically, sport has been mainly practised by gifted or passionate people. Propagation of the health and aesthetic benefits of being physically active, together with an increase (or better management) of leisure time, has resulted in a diffusion of sports practice in the contemporary world. Currently, there are more members in health and fitness clubs than ever and sport facilities became a not unusual element in many new planning developments. Paradoxically, participation in sports still remains relatively low overall in both the centre and the periphery¹ and there is substantial margin for improvement. In England, for example, approximately 50 per cent of men and about 55 per cent of women do not do any sports,² and these “no participation” figures are particularly high among certain population sub-groups, such as South Asian middle-aged women (80–95 per cent do not do any sports), men and women from lower socioeconomic groups (70–80 per cent), and individual with disabilities (90 per cent).

Increases in sport participation would improve the population’s physical and mental well-being and would drastically reduce chronic disease-driven costs for the health services around the world. At the same time, other benefits such as contribution to environmental sustainability, reduction of crime, and social and economic progress in developing and post-disaster areas are becoming more and more critical.

“Sports” is a wide term that has been used in a different way in a variety of settings. The most common use of the term is to describe participation in exercise and other recreational physical activity. Health-related research and practice define physical activity as “any bodily movement that results in energy expenditure above the resting level” (for example, walking to work/shops, tidying up, washing up), exercise as “a subset of physical activity that is done in a planned in an organized manner” (for example, going for a run, going to the gym, swimming, cycling for fun/fitness), and sports as “sub-set of exercise that involves participation in competitive activities” (for example, playing football, golf, running a marathon). For the purposes of this book, we will be will be referring to “sports” to describe participation in any competitive or non-competitive exercise that is done in a planned and structured manner. Also, we will be using the terms exercising and practising sport in an indiscriminate way. Such a broad definition is in line with the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on Sport for Development that defines sports as:

all forms of physical activity that contribute to physical fitness, mental well-being and social interaction. These include play, recreation, organized, casual or competitive sport; and indigenous sports or games.

This book shows how social responsible design can contribute to make sport practice widespread in the general population, including disadvantaged and hard-to-reach groups. It also explores the economic and social wellbeing impact of this process as well as its challenges such as environmental sustainability. The book takes an international perspective and goes beyond design for sport in the developed world only. While the main benefit from expanding sports practice in developed societies would be reduction of chronic disease rates and social inclusion, in the developing world where political instability and conflict are more common sport can have other functions too, such as a means of postdisaster relief.

Interest in sports as a passive practice (that is, being a spectator) is universal, in both the geographical and the cultural sense. This is, in part, because watching sports has become incredibly easily accessible (mainly through the multiple media access-points). Alas, the same does not hold true for active participation in sports. Low active participation in sports is partly due to the fact that current sports-design concepts are addressed to those segments of the population that are relatively young and healthy, highly skilled and motivated, and in many cases at least moderately educated with a fair buying capacity. Therefore, designers face now the challenge of making sport practice more accessible, enjoyable, and safe for the entire population. This entails including minorities that have been traditionally excluded such as the elderly, the disabled, people living in deprived areas, people from lower socioeconomic strata, and certain minority ethnic and religious groups. As previously outlined, if sports participation in the general population is low, it is even more so for marginalized groups and discriminated individuals. For example, a recent survey conducted in the UK showed that where participation in physical activity stood at 21 per cent (those aged 16+), for disabled people this figure dropped to just under 9 per cent.³ Another survey⁴ found that sports participation among Pakistani and Bangladeshi women living in England is 16 per cent and 12 per cent, compared with 34 per cent among women in the general population. One of the challenges here is how to encourage and engage these groups of users in the sport practice aiming to increase their participation. In order to achieve this, the players in the sport value-creation chain – namely, product designers, interaction designers, communication and information designers, interior designers, policy designers, game designers, town planners, engineers and architects – need to go beyond the improvement of the performance and usability qualities of tools and gears, interactive devices and environments (sports facilities and playgrounds). They ought to work synergistically to enhance the holistic user-experience so that active participation in sports becomes an accessible and pleasurable option with clearly understood benefits for the participants.

Besides sensitizing the reader about this designers’ duty towards sport practice, the book also aims to make him reflect on the aspect of sustainable and responsible design, the same sense of social responsibility that Papanek exposed in his Design for the Real World:⁵

Before (in the good old days), if a person liked killing people, he had to become a general, purchase a coal mine or study nuclear physics. Today, industrial design has put murder in mass production basis. By designing criminally unsafe automobiles that kill or maim nearly 1 million people around the world each year, by creating a whole new species of permanent garbage to clutter up the landscape and by choosing materials and processes that pollute the air we breathe, designers have become a dangerous breed. And the skills needed in these activities are carefully taught to young people.

The scope of design for sport extends from the area of product design to other design fields such the environment (for example, adequate and accessible infrastructures, persuading systems),⁶ interaction design (for example, user friendly performance and monitoring systems), communication design (for example, information and motivation campaigns) and policy (for example, legislation protecting green spaces and reducing taxes on sporting equipment or publicly-funded sport promotion campaigns).

This book explores how design in its broad sense can contribute to make sport practice widespread in the general population as well as among disadvantaged and hard-to-reach groups, and discusses, at the same time, the impact and challenges of this process. Finally, it investigates the broader impact of social responsible design for sport in terms of social wellbeing and economic development and environmental sustainability. The basis of the above is the importance of understanding people’s needs and requirements in their real contexts. In fact, the context can discourage or encourage the practice of a sport. For example, some older people might feel embarrassed wearing in public a certain cycling outfit that has been clearly designed for youngsters. Also, for certain cultures it is considered inappropriate for women to exercise in the same environment with men and therefore they are excluded from practising sports in public facilities. In this sense, the book explains how design ethnography⁷ avails of psychology, economics, sociology, geography and cultural studies to understand these users’ background, cultural sensitivities and needs.

The book is structured to reflect the multi-disciplinary and crossdisciplinary nature of design for sport and its implications. In order to reinforce and support the topics, it also showcases some compelling sports-design case studies. To put the issue of sport design in context, this book gives an account of the evolution of sport practice, and other health or appearance-promoting leisure-time physical activity and exercise. Thereafter it covers different crucial aspects of socially responsible design for sport such as product, interface and information design, game (rules) and environment design to improve sport accessibility (for example, taking into account gender requirements, disabilities, and economic and cultural factors.

Next there is an overview of the subjects that will be discussed in the chapters that will follow.

In Chapter 1, sports historian Malcolm MacLean provides a brief but acute background of modern sport and the role of design in this process. According to the author, sport’s popular “historicization and attendant nostalgia” are responsible for the sense of crisis.

At the same time, the perception that sport is something done by naturally occurring, organic, human bodies that use the universal skills such as running, jumping, and throwing conceals its artificiality, its design. If nothing else, analyses and interpretations of sports’ design need continually to remember its artificiality, and the paradox of its greatest moments being in its state of continuous contemporary decline.

Chapter 2 shows how information technology can help to make sport practice easier (for example, GPS maps and locator, personalized virtual trainer, personalized diet, and so on), more enjoyable (for example, by providing information and awareness about the users’ environment and their social surroundings, audiovisual entertainment on the go, and so on) and more effective and safer (for example, performance-and health-monitoring). Interaction design experts Floyd Mueller and Stefan Agamanolis also present their work around the concept of “Exertion Interfaces” looking at supporting designers in creating systems that motivate people to exercise and incorporate regular fitness activities in their lives. They also present some novel sports experiences related to interactive systems, and highlight the role of social support in these activities (for example, availing of social networking advances). Finally, the chapter describes remaining issues and opportunities in order to advance further the field of design for sports from an interaction design perspective.

Chapter 3 addresses the topic of urban planning design to sustain sport practice. Koberstein and Bergmann explain how sport can promote the social and ethnic integration of a district’s inhabitants: suitable sports sites, “activity spaces” as well as an improvement of the sports offering are essential conditions for social cohesion in a town. The demands of young people for sports facilities and sports offerings have changed substantially over recent years. However, they also point out that traditional sports sites often no longer fit the needs of new generations. According to their extensive experience in the area mainly during the reconstruction of East Germany, unconditional access to sport (particularly in deprived districts) should be a right and one developed in partnership with the inhabitants. The presented model of demand for the integration of sports development in urban planning in East German local authority districts can be easily applied by other realities even if not evidencing comparable socio-economic patterns.

Chapter 4 focuses on the links between interior and environmental design and sport practice. In brief, Kat Martindale explains how the functional and operational issues in physical-space design can broaden opportunities for involvement in sporting activities. It also addresses the impact of designing safer neighbourhoods that encourage outdoor pursuits, enhance perceived and factual security and sports participation contributing, at the same time, to reduce area deprivation and crime.

Chapter 5 deals with the intricate issue of equipment and space design for disability. George Torrens and Ken Black elucidate how the growing self-advocacy movement, and increases in disability rights legislation in developed countries, has led to a rapid increase in accessible design. They also address how new sports facilities must now adhere to strict guidelines regarding the access of disabled people. The authors also illustrate how the influence of high-level sports events on environmental improvements and better access (for example, Athens Paralympics), and corresponding increased awareness that in turn have improved opportunities in sport for ordinary disabled people. They evidence how the evolution of equipment-design mirrors the way sport for disabled people has grown from a participation-based, impairment-specific approach to a multi-million euro elite sports programme, including the design of other sports equipment innovations. However, they contrast this with the continuing difficulties still faced by disabled people in developing and Third World environments.

Chapter 6 is focused on game design. Specifically, Ken Black and Doug Williamson demonstrate how legislation affecting the inclusion of young disabled people in physical education (PE) has had a positive influence on the development of resource material, equipment and activity-design to support professional staff in facilitating their inclusion. Examples of specific ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Foreword
• PART 1 Introduction, History and Future
• PART 2 Better Places and Spaces
• PART 3 Part III Accessibility and Inclusivity
• PART 4 Part iv Research for Sport Design
• PART 5 Part V Policy and Design for Sport
• PART 6 Part VI Conclusions
• Index