sub base platypus
MAY 2026
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DESN9301 Graduation Studio
Project time: 13 weeks
Tools: Figma, Illustrator, Miro, Photoshop, Typeform
My role: I led the co-design research thread, drawing on participatory design literature to frame how the team approached community engagement. I also contributed to the project proposal, context framing, stakeholder mapping, and WIP presentations throughout the semester. My architectural and UX background informed how I approached the site, thinking about space and system together, and how the physical and digital dimensions of the intervention might work in relation to each other.
Site: Sub Base Platypus, Neutral Bay, Sydney
Our Clients: BlueGreen, Regen Sydney, Harbour Trust
Collaborators: Erin Ambulo, Maya Bernacchi, Sunghee Cho, YuxiaoLian (The University of Sydney)
Masters of Interaction Design, University of Sydney
Summary and Design Problem
Our project is responding to a live brief from BlueGreen and Regen Sydney. The project explores how a heritage waterfront site can be transformed into a community bio-innovation centre, where everyday people engage with mycelium-based making, waste as a resource, and the circular economy as a lived practice rather than an abstract concept.
Sub Base Platypus has the heritage, the location, and the intention. What it lacks is activation. The site functions more as a transit corridor than a destination, with low foot traffic, minimal programming, and sustainability processes that are largely invisible to the general public.
The deeper problem is not a lack of interest but a lack of entry points: without accessible, hands-on ways to engage, circular economy principles remain distant and abstract for most visitors. The design challenge is to make participation feel possible, rewarding, and worth returning to.
Our Design Process
The intended Process
The team adopted a bottom-up, community-embedded design methodology, structured across four phases: Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver.
Discover Phase
The process began with a site visit at Sub Base Platypus, where the team conducted behavioural observation, environmental flow mapping, and informal interviews with visitors. We also completed preliminary desk research across six themes: third spaces, placemaking, co-design, circular economy, temporary space activation, and local demographics.
The site visit reframed our initial entry point. We had expected waste streams to be a central issue; instead, the more urgent challenge was foot traffic and motivation. The site lacked not materials, but community presence.
Define Phase
This phase involved synthesising findings through affinity mapping and thematic analysis, alongside stakeholder and power mapping. Two provisional How Might We directions emerged from this work: one around discovery-led engagement, and one around participatory making environments. Both ask a related question: how do we shift visitors from observing to creating, and how do we sustain that engagement over time?
Secondary research drew on precedents including the Rediscovery Centre in Dublin, a former industrial boiler house now operating as a circular economy demonstration centre, and the Inner West Sustainability Hub in Sydney, which models how a networked community platform can embed repair, reuse, and materials education into everyday neighbourhood life.
A key insight across this research was that people engage far more readily with hands-on, actionable activities than with information about problems. Planting, making, building, contributing something tangible: these are the conditions under which participation becomes meaningful and sustained.
Develop and Deliver Phase
The team is currently moving into concept development, exploring intervention strategies including a community token system that rewards material contribution, gamified workshop touchpoints for families, and digital tools to make the lifecycle of materials visible in real time.
brainstorming
user insights
01- Affinity Mapping
In addition to gathering quantitative results from our questionnaire, we interviewed 7 avid traveler’s who provided further in-depth insights on their opinions on travel planning and experiences post-pandemic.
competitior analysis
02- Affinity Mapping
I have analysed 2 direct and 1 indirect competitors for the app, overall have similar dynamic profile orientated form with the allowance of signing in/up using facebook, google and existing emails.
view competitor onboarding process annotations
key findings
Our Defintions
Problem Statement
The team adopted a bottom-up, community-embedded design methodology, structured across four phases: Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver.
How Might We Statements
How Might we
definition+ideation
Problem Statement
The event currently lacks real-time tracking, leaving participants without immediate access to race progress or finishing times.
This limitation means participants often rely on external apps for preparation and tracking, which takes away from the experience the event wants to offer.
How
City2Surf encourages first-time runners like Amy to participate in community events while balancing personal commitments. It connects users to various activities, such as fun runs and training events, helping them build confidence and prepare for the marathon at their own pace.
Additionally, City2Surf offers individual and community-based training plans, allowing participants to stay engaged and track their progress and fostering a more connected and supportive experience for everyone involved.
ideation
04- Online Ethnography
Our ethnographic study revealed three key issues: new runners struggle to join existing communities, the race layout causes bottlenecks, and many participants are unaware of or avoid the official app, preferring external tools like Strava.
05- Feature prioritization matrix
Feature prioritisation allows to help inform UX decisions, to discuss if solutions are feasible.
user journey
"Kevin, a social runner, has registered for City2Surf 2024 for the first time and has approximately three months to prepare. Unsure about how to begin his training and event preparation, he looks for guidance from fellow runners in the community and searches for online resources to help him get started."
prototyping
Desktop Interface
User Goal: Use your bib number to create a personalized online identity on the City2Surf desktop app. Curate your training journey through an interactive onboarding questionnaire: select your training wave, answer tailored questions to refine your preferences, and preview a unique race experience customized to your goals.
Apple Watch Interface
User Goal: Users want to easily select their training wave, choose a session and track their progress in real time. After each workout, they aim to review a detailed overview to monitor performance and stay motivated
clickable prototype
Play with the City2Surf Desktop Website.
reflection & key learning
This project has asked me to hold a lot of complexity at once. As someone trained in architecture and UX, I am drawn to the question of how space shapes behaviour, and how participation can be designed rather than assumed.
What Funghetti keeps returning to is the idea that circular economy practice should not require expertise to enter. The site has genuine potential as a third space, one defined not by what it sells but by what it makes possible: informal encounters, shared curiosity, hands-on contribution.
reflection & key learning
Next Steps
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Move into concept development and begin sketching intervention directions
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Run co-design workshops with community members at Sub Base Platypus
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Develop and test low-fidelity prototypes against sustainability goals
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Refine the digital tools concept for tracking material lifecycles in real time
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Prepare final deliverables for the May exhibition and client presentation
Takeaways
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Lowering the threshold for participation is a design problem, not a communications one
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Sustainability becomes legible when it is hands-on and contributory, not informational
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Space and system cannot be designed independently, the physical and digital need to work together
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Multidisciplinary collaboration produces better framing, even when it slows down decision-making
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A site’s underuse is not a barrier, it is an opportunity to define what activation could mean on community terms
full case study
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