Hokies tackle e-scooter issues in Georgetown | Virginia Tech News | Virginia Tech

Associate Professor Brook Kennedy and students participating in the summer pilot Urban Infrastructure Studio put their design skills to work in creating Nest, a prototype parking rack that will soon be deployed for testing.

14 Oct 2024

Have you ever walked down a city street – or at least tried to walk down a street – and found yourself picking your way around or carefully through a tangled mass of electric scooters?

As these rentable electronic transportation solutions become more prevalent across cities, towns, and even college campuses, they bring their own form of congestion and sidewalk snarls along with them.

Brook Kennedy, an associate professor of industrial design in Virginia Tech’s College of Architecture, Arts, and Design, is working to solve the problem.

Kennedy, who teaches in the School of Design, piloted an experiential studio opportunity this summer in Washington, D.C., where he and his students explored how rack design could encourage e-scooterists, as well as cyclists, to park more responsibly.

The project was kick-started when the Georgetown Business Improvement District (BID) approached Industrial Design Program Chair Martha Sullivan. They were looking for a way to improve mobility in the neighborhood by specifically addressing the problem of disorderly, piled up, rentable e-scooters that were blocking sidewalks and generally impeding access.

Where they saw a problem, Kennedy recognized an opportunity. “The idea of urban infrastructure design and ways to facilitate mobility in cities while making the experience more pleasant for everyone are worthy efforts,” said Kennedy.

The resulting pilot Urban Infrastructure Studio was, according to Kennedy, the “first industrial design offering of its kind in the U.S. capital region.” The summer experiential studio engaged undergraduates with a hands-on focus, allowing them to apply the design concepts they learn about in the classroom to address a real problem facing the Georgetown community.

Kennedy organized and led the six-week class in the manner of a professional design studio, where students utilized an approach known as “human-centered design” or “design thinking.” It is a process of “understanding more carefully what is truly important for users and other stakeholders as a means of designing objects, spaces, environments, and systems that reflect what is needed, rather than what is assumed,” Kennedy said.

“I saw it as an opportunity to expose them to a way of working more professionally than what they might encounter in a typical lecture class,” Kennedy said. “The class size was small, which enabled and encouraged the students to work together as a team, which was especially important because they would be working so closely with a real client.”

The hands-on, collaborative design approach allowed the student consultants and their design director, in this case Kennedy, to create and choose a proposal that best addressed the specific needs and goals of their client, the Georgetown BID.

The approach was understood and embraced by the students. “You have to put your feelings aside to appease the stakeholders’ needs and what their criteria are,” said Yasmeen Elgayli.

Once underway, the design team used a combination of research and prototyping methods. Over the course of six weeks, they conducted interviews with neighborhood residents, reviewed online data, photographed current street conditions, and analyzed previous attempts by nearby neighborhoods to prevent the improper parking of e-scooters.

“I had no experience with research going into the summer class,” Elgayli said, but she and the other students were able to quickly learn and master the technical and communications skills needed to be successful researchers.

Once the research was completed, the first phase of the human-centered design process required the student designers to integrate the collected data with users’ perspectives.

The designers recognized three channels of opportunity for solving the problem of improperly parked scooters: regulation, scooter design, and rack design. The team identified the constraints to the problem early on and consequently focused on rack design as the most feasible solution.

More specifically, the designers directed their efforts towards designing a scooter rack that would offer an emotional impetus toward changing human behavior.

“A lot of what design is involves making the user feel better, making their life easier,” said Elgayli. “How does each prototype make the user feel?”

The team of eight designers adopted the perspectives of scooter users and pedestrians in order to design options for an effective rack that encouraged responsible scooter parking. They considered how it felt to find a scooter impeding their walking path, rent a scooter, and park a scooter when finished with it.

At the midway checkpoint, the Georgetown BID reviewed the designs and provided feedback.

“They picked one of our designs,” Elgayli said. “It was very validating. It was also humbling. In the real world, this is how we’re going to be treated. We have to stand up for ourselves, but we also have to appreciate the stakeholders for showing us a real-world perspective.”

Imagine walking down a city sidewalk past e-scooters parked neatly in their racks. You watch as scooterists return their rides to the sleek and sturdy design made of powder-coated steel.

It’s the final design created by Kennedy and his student team: Nest. The rack encourages proper parking by making the process intuitive. It also works for bicycles. Hopefully, riders feel a sense of satisfaction as they return scooters to their home.

By providing these parking racks with electric scooters in mind, Georgetown can limit messy pileups, which supports the historical integrity of the neighborhood as well as sidewalk accessibility.

“If it [Nest] can help other communities or neighborhoods in the D.C. area and beyond, that would be our goal,” Kennedy said. “It’s a public service.”

Georgetown BID has approved the design and plans to advance into the prototype stage so Nest can be tested along the main retail corridors of the neighborhood. They are also exploring funding, partnerships, and intellectual property rights so the prototype can become a reality.

In addition, the Virginia Tech team plans to present their e-scooter rack design at the annual National Association of City Transportation Officials conference in May 2025. The full design team consisted of Brook Kennedy (director and lead) and students Matteo Chiappetta, Sydney Compton, Julian Daross, Yasmeen Elgayli, Keith Khan, Jason Liu, and Josh Taibbi.

The program was based out of Virginia Tech’s Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center (WAAC) in Old Town Alexandria. The location allowed Kennedy and his team of student designers to immerse themselves in urban design and inspiration, and to utilize the WAAC’s shop facilities, managed by Associate Collegiate Professor Ryan Pieper, in the prototyping phases of the project.

Kennedy and School of Design leaders are interested in the potential to grow the pilot program in the Washington, D.C., area to offer hands-on learning experiences to more students. The studio exemplifies the transformational opportunities that the university seeks to make available to all Hokes through the Virginia Tech Advantage.

The program also provides a way to serve communities in the capital region. The Urban Infrastructure Studio is scheduled to be offered again at the WAAC in summer 2025 and will focus on another project from the Georgetown BID or a new client.

“I think there's a tremendous opportunity to expand our presence and programs in the urban capital region,” Kennedy said. “The D.C. area is home to hundreds of NGOs, multinational corporations, and other organizations that could benefit more from the power of design.”

This story was written by Ashley Falat, a junior communications major, and Krista Timney.

Krista Timney

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