High Tea at the Conviviality Café: Research Tool or Design Intervention?

The FLEX project asked how we might age convivially at home. In response to concerns about an ageing British population, we looked at social factors of wellbeing in the ambient realm of neighbourhood encounters. We report on how we asked our research participants in Newcastle, north England, and Dundee, Scotland, about their understanding of conviviality, using a café environment to inspire a relaxed and friendly exchange of views over tea. We consider the way that questions were designed into the two courses of the meal and ask: is this perhaps a form of research-through-design for social contexts? Certainly, participants responded to the environment and subtle questioning style. And we draw a contrast between this form of designing - for use in research - and the more summative purpose of the exhibits that also came out of the project.