S8 EP3: Matt Mohammadii PhD, Biophilic Benefits

Matt talks about his research in the field of landscape architecture and how it can improve in patient outcomes.

If you'd like to learn more about the AHDC, please connect with us on our website www.aushdc.org.au or on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/company/aushdc.

Transcript

David Cummins: G'day, and welcome to the AHDC podcast series, Health Design on the Go. 

[00:00:17] I'm your host, David Cummins, and today we are speaking to Dr. Mohammad Mohammadii, who is a Doctor of Research from the School of Architecture and Design at RMIT University in Australia. 

[00:00:29] Mohammad explores the social life of public spaces, mainly privately owned public spaces. 

[00:00:35] In addition to his research, Mohammad is the founder of POPS for Public, which is a social enterprise project aiming to improve the access and inclusiveness of privately owned public spaces.

[00:00:47] POPS for Public fills the gaps in providing accessible and inclusive public spaces in cities through activating POPS. 

[00:00:55] Mohammad is perfect for our chat today on the importance of architecture in open spaces to help improve health and wellbeing of community. Welcome, Mohammad. Thank you for your time. 

[00:01:04] Matt Mohammadii: Hello David.

[00:01:05] Thank you for having me. 

[00:01:08] David Cummins: Congratulations on finishing your PhD. I know it's not readily available yet, but will be soon, and I personally haven't read it, but I'm looking forward to it. 

[00:01:16] Do you mind telling our listeners today, what exactly your research has been? 

[00:01:20] Matt Mohammadii: I'm working on Inclusive and accessible public spaces and understand how we can design better public spaces for the community.

[00:01:28] I started working on designing inclusive and social public spaces since my Masters Degree in 2014 and continue through my PhD research here in Australia. My PhD research has been devoted to improving inclusive and accessible public spaces in cities. I research community needs in cities for accessible and safe activity destination to engage in urban lives through activating privately owned public spaces.

[00:01:56] These spaces are usually hidden, exclusive, and visually inaccessible. My research findings contributed to the planning, designing, managing accessible and inclusive POPS which stands for Privately Owned Public Spaces in Cities. 

[00:02:13] I think you explained the next part of that I'm trying to say, which is developing the POPS for public.

[00:02:19] I also develop innovative ways to translate my research into social impact as a social enterprise project. 

[00:02:26] My project, POPS for Public, aims to improve the access and inclusivity of POPS, but creating more awareness around this type of public spaces and introducing their potential for hustling social life in the cities.

[00:02:43] At the moment, I'm working on an online platform where users can search and find free publicly accessible places for their individual and social activities. 

[00:02:54] This platform connects people to those usually hidden spaces. It also helps newcomers to the cities (like international students and tourists) find public spaces and amenities with more information about the right of views in those spaces.

[00:03:15] David Cummins: So that's very started research back in 2014, and obviously it's evolved dramatically since then. Since then, also we've had Covid, which would've had huge impact on your research. How has Covid impacted your research and your thinking throughout the last few years? 

[00:03:35] Matt Mohammadii: Yes. I have started my research in my Masters in 2014 and then continued my PhD too.

[00:03:41] I started my PhD in 2017. So since then I tried to observe a lot of public spaces in Melbourne as a case study of my research. And I have always focused on public benefit and being a community advocate, to introduce more accessible private spaces to the people. 

[00:03:58] This kind of operation got a lot of challenges during the Covid and it led to more research around how we can make them available to the public.

[00:04:09] And it also brought a lot of new idea and innovative way of thinking about public. I reached the point that we need more urban-based solution contributing to public life, especially youth mental health during Covid. 

[00:04:23] For example, one of my innovative idea concentrate on the youth mental health. Covid 19 pandemic showed the importance of public spaces being in several lockdowns has significant currently impact community mental health, especially youth mental health. There are higher numbers of depression and loneliness for younger generation, mainly the age of 15 to 19.

[00:04:47] Uh, the Research with health reports emphasise the younger generation more than the other age groups, they felt alone and needed more opportunity for social connection with the community. The question is, where can youth do their social activity in their schools, home or public spaces?

[00:05:06] Yes. Open green and public spaces like parks seems. Answer for some physical activities and gatherings, but not essentially enough for a stationary and longer social activities. Also, they are not well protected, well lighted and furnished for gathering or more focused focus group activities. On the other side, youth and younger generation are also short in money and cannot afford other social spaces for adults like pubs and cafes.

[00:05:36] Moreover, youth between age 15. To 18 are also prohibited from many social places serving alcohols. So the question here is, where else do our city have for youth social social life privately on us? Privately owned public spaces can be a good answer to this question. Here in Melbourne, we have more than a hundred.

[00:06:00] They provide potential for social activity, which cannot be found in fully public spaces. They are free, safe, secure, and monitored spaces that usually provide furnished, weather protected and well-lighted spaces at night.

[00:06:15] Sounds great places for youth, but in reality they don't work because they are usually exclusive, hidden and visually inaccessible.

[00:06:24] Even if we can find them, we think they are private and we cannot use them. My research highly recommends putting those mysterious semi-public spaces on our city maps and introducing them to wider public user. I also believe the other types of POPS, like university, museum and libraries have potential as Publicly Accessible Spaces, to be to our city public life.

[00:06:47] My interviews with institutes show that they are happy to share some of their facilities with the students and youth for free, or paying a minimal fee. But it need to be done to a specific procedure to ensure the space operators' convenience. 

[00:07:06] David Cummins: Yeah, that's very interesting because basically you found an existing problem and an existing answer and combined the two. 

[00:07:14] So, how do people find these spaces that you've talked about? 

[00:07:19] Some are hidden some, are new, some people aren't aware of. So, how do you go about finding these spaces? 

[00:07:24] Matt Mohammadii: Yes. 

[00:07:24] My research show that people usually don't understand, they are fully accessible by the public and they can use them and they have a weak nature in combination of the other private spaces.

[00:07:36] So they are very hard to distinguish by, common people. So one of the things that I try to implement in the practice also in that contributing to the public life. It was a simple answer that we can create a new type of map, including POPS and we bringing those kind of digital tools to introduce POPS.

[00:07:56] I think Melbourne doesn't have policy support for installing a signage system that clearly introduce those public spaces to the public.

[00:08:07] In contrast with the other international city that are well known for the quality public spaces, Australian cities do not have signage system that introduce different types of public spaces.

[00:08:19] They just introduce fully public spaces, so, we need both digital and physical kind of clarification for people to search and find public spaces like POPS because they usually are hidden at the Ground Floor of Tower and they seems as private spaces. 

[00:08:38] David Cummins: Yeah, that's very interesting because realistically your research actually has global impact because I imagine a lot of other countries would have similar problems and similar opportunities.

[00:08:48] Would that be correct? 

[00:08:50] Matt Mohammadii: Yes. 

[00:08:50] POPS as a type of new public spaces. Has been introduced since 1970's and a lot of countries use creating public private partnership for delivering public spaces because governments usually do not have enough land in the city centres and in the CBD areas.

[00:09:09] And purchasing land is very expensive. They try to create partnership with the private sector and get some of the public space requires for the citizen through those kind of partnerships. So this type of privately owned, but accessible to the public people, has been known as a new type of public spaces.

[00:09:31] But common people do not understand this kind of strategy. They are not familiar with these spaces. So we need to inform them in different way.

[00:09:40] What kind of right they have, what kind of things that they can do in those kind of spaces. And at the basic level, we need to introduce them where they are located at the city because they have a different types. 

[00:09:54] Some of them are at the ground floor, some of them are at the basement of a shopping plaza or a city plaza, some of them even located at the higher floor. 

[00:10:04] People by law, have the right to have access to those spaces but they usually don't understand about their location and what they can do in those spaces.

[00:10:16] David Cummins: Yeah, very interesting. So you mentioned earlier that there's a lot of benefits to community, especially with mental health and youth. What other positives or benefits has your research shown to help with the community and through health? 

[00:10:31] Matt Mohammadii: One of the things that we can mention and put it as a framework of having sustainable and resilient city is following sustainable development goals that the United Nation provided us based on sustainable development goals. 

[00:10:46] One of the POPS social benefit that we can imagine for these kind of public spaces contributing to this public life and having sustainable cities because United Nation Sustainable Development Goals 2013 emphasise on the design of inclusive and accessible public.

[00:11:05] And they also emphasise on the community health and wellbeing by expanding equal opportunity and access, and also strengthening and emphasising on community participation in the city life, which connects sustainable development goals about the city and development of the sustainable city to having a healthy community, which is Sustainable Development Goals No. 3. 

[00:11:29] So my research tries to tie these two sustainable development goals together and create urban-based solution for having community. 

[00:11:42] David Cummins: Yeah, that's really interesting. So what would be some of the disadvantages then, or what would be some of the challenges of implementation of your research?

[00:11:50] Because there's a lot of benefits, but why hasn't it been done before? What's the resistance to actually implementing this? 

[00:11:56] Matt Mohammadii: Creating a public private partnership has lots of challenging stakeholders. It is very hard to put all of the stakeholders benefit on the table at the same time. 

[00:12:07] We cannot ensure the private developer benefits at sometimes. And also one of the great challenges to make policy change and create some regulations especially urban policy to, for example, install a simple signage system in front of private and we call this space public. 

[00:12:27] This is one of the challenges we usually have to ensure private sector that having public users in their spaces doesn't, create more maintenance costs for the buildings or doesn't create any kind of vandalisms or those kind of unexpected activities in their spaces.

[00:12:48] Yeah. 

[00:12:48] David Cummins: Yeah, that makes sense. So it sounds like, it sounds like management education and potentially some money as well. 

[00:12:56] Yes. It's.

[00:12:57] I try to propose my idea and make this kind of policy change happen but usually those kind of policy change needs a longer process. 

[00:13:06] And one of the reasons that I developed my social enterprise, it was that I faced, at the earlier stage of my research that it's very hard to change urban policy and require those private building owners to install a public space like a sign in front of the building and invite people inside to their buildings. 

[00:13:27] So I try to create a social enterprise and have a lot more individual actions to introduce those hidden and space to the public. 

[00:13:37] Yeah, perfect.

[00:13:38] That sounds good. So what would you say some of the lessons learnt have been that you'd like to share with our listeners? If people are listening to this say it's a great idea... what can they do and how can they learn from your teachings? 

[00:13:50] Matt Mohammadii: Yes. I have a lot of acceptance and rejection in translating my research to social impact, especially in contributing to more resilience and healthy public spaces.

[00:14:01] One of the important things I learned to be resiliant as well and keep continuing my aims and objectives in having accessible and inclusive public spaces. One of the lesson learned that I got is creating a small and local public and private partnership as a good strategy of delivering public benefits.

[00:14:23] We cannot not just be, rely on, public sector to provide us. For example, healthy community to healthy public spaces. We need to create a small and local partnerships that ensure both public and private benefits and also contribute to our social and urban life. 

[00:14:44] David Cummins: Yeah, that sounds like a pretty good lesson learned.

[00:14:47] Matt Mohammadii: So you've just done five years of research, achieved your PhD, started this new business... what's the future hold for you, Mohammed, now that you've achieved all these amasing goals in the last five years?

[00:14:57] One of my aims for future is continuing researching public/private partnership for creating public space as increasing kind of strategy in different city.

[00:15:09] And one of the things that I'm trying to do is researching and developing my idea in creating advanced and digital tools for sustainable and inclusive planning, designing, managing, and maintaining this part of urban realm. 

[00:15:24] So I can then continue and translate the outcome and product of my PhD, delivering digital tools.

[00:15:32] And based on my four years in pre-cal Research, I propose a bigger idea, bigger than my social enterprise. I'm working on designing digital infrastructure, which can shed a new light on POPS for sustainable and part urban development. 

[00:15:49] This kind of digital infrastructure provide a multiscale data driven approach in different phases of delivering public benefit.

[00:15:57] From policy making and planning to design and construction phases also post occupancy evaluation and maintenance of public amenities. 

[00:16:07] So developing and implementing this urban informative contributes to delivering inclusive safe, smart and sustainable city that expand equal opportunity and a strength community participation in shaping our cities.

[00:16:24] David Cummins: It sounds very impressive and I personally wanna thank you and congratulate you on all your research. It does sound amasing. I can't wait till it's publicly available, and I have no doubt your research will have not only local benefits, but global benefits because it is a global solution that you've created there.

[00:16:40] You should be very proud and very, very happy with what you've achieved. 

[00:16:44] Matt Mohammadii: Yeah, thank you. I hope for such a achievement and also hope for having more kind of implement translating my research to the practice and make it more such a publicly accessible platform for all. So all people can use this platform and find their desirable public spaces for their social activities.

[00:17:05] hopefully it will be the release in future and I can develop this idea further and further. 

[00:17:11] David Cummins: Yeah, well done, congratulations. 

[00:17:13] Matt Mohammadii: Yeah, thank you. 

[00:17:15] David Cummins: You have been listening to the Australian Health Design Council podcast series, Health Design on the Go. 

[00:17:21] If you would like to learn more about the AHDC, please connect with us on our website or LinkedIn. 

[00:17:27] Thank you for listening.