Research

Independent research is a way to scratch an intellectual itch, and to create points of focus. The below are independent projects which are separate from client work.

Project Cryptonym

Crowdsourcing Whole Food's Delivery Dictionary

We are crowdsourcing a corpus of bag names (cryptonym) in order to see emergent patterns.

We need your help. Please fill out this google form to help us build the dictionary. We are asking for as much information as you want to share. We will never sell your information. That's not cool. But we will use it to better understand how Amazon/Whole Foods are designing for the person-machine-person collaboration.

Typology.city

Municipalities – Cities, villages, urban and suburban areas – are full of small bits of urban fabric which we almost never foreground: street furniture. These bits of urbanity are the unsung heroes of city life.

These small bits of the city help keep us moving safely about our day by deploying signage and traffic lights; hold our newspapers before and after we read them; street furniture protects us with bollards and separated bike lanes; and street furniture brings us joy with trees and art.

Municipalities purchase street furniture from a finite set of manufacturers. However, the composition, range, and context is different in each community. This website endeavors to present a wide cross section of communities, taking into account varying densities, geographic location, community age, and mobility mix, allowing wider insights.

Tactical Democracy

Person–person–engagement is key to making our communities better. But they need to be planned and mediated in order to minimize bad actors, and maximize resident empowerment.

Working at the civic scale is difficult: the pace is quick, there are a myriad amount of players, the stakes are high and often unforgiving, and time is short. In our experience those who work in government or in the civic sphere aim (for the most part) to improve their fellow-residents lives. But they might be constrained by a lack of resources (time and money), rules designed in an earlier age, or an actively hostile bureaucracy.

Tactical Democracy is a toolkit where you can use to host better dialogue with those you serve, gain confidence that solutions to policy problems are just, and help you manage change. This is incomplete, and will of course not encompass all contexts and situations. Where we fall short, we ask for your forgiveness and we ask for your help in improving this toolkit.

Hi. Expedition Works is a design consultancy (and a small-business!), where we design new services and businesses, new environments, new ways to engage with residents, and we conduct independent research.

Purchase our physical zine, Journey with Purpose.

We help you on your journey with purpose.

Explore our weekly logos.

Email us and visit our Instagram.

Expedition Works, LLC; New York.