The project aimed to explore ways of bridging the gap between the lack of “third places” and teenagers seeking a space of belonging.
Goals of Floragotchi is to create a third place in Community Gardens. The app serves as one of the tools/ proposals of implementing this idea. This initiative comes from observing the lack of free spaces or playgrounds in urban landscapes and megacities, which affects not only financially-dependent teenagers but also adults. Floragotchi believes that instead of trying to escape the ‘uncomfortable’ or ‘annoying’ interactions with teenagers, we need to educate them with empathy, curiosity, and understanding.
After finishing the research I came to a conclusion on how vital it is to observe how communities are being bonded, especially in cities and places we occupy. While many places are getting gentrified and heavily commercialized, it is crucial for us as a collective to offer diverse solutions—whether innovative or simple—to address these challenges. We must pay closer attention to the places we frequent daily, how we form connections within them, and how we become attached to these spaces.
Floragotchi and its app construction is one of the ways of how I tried to use gamification and connect it with Urban Gardens by emphasizing their social importance as a “third place”, and giving a sense of world-building, but in the physical realm. Taking into account the growing tendencies of hyper-personalized contents and hyper-individualistic communication of brands, Floragotchi acknowledges this digital reality by giving enough recognition of the user’s impact in the Garden and also an ownership. It makes the Community Gardens, in some sense, theirs. Yes, the place is public, but the mechanism somehow turns the place into something personal. Perhaps our perception of “hang-outs” is slowly turning into a “fourth place”?
