To Be Together
As more and more technology applications enter campus life, they create growing communication limitations for college students. Connection increasingly depends on networks, which not only reduces the quality of real human contact but also brings psychological strain.
Through research, I found that campus environments cannot satisfy students’ communication desires, and campuses lack interesting, functional activities and communication forms. The student background difference is not the fundamental barrier to connection — it’s the sensitive, impulsive student personality paired with an environment that offers no right space for expression.
The Concept of Emptiness
The very important reason for lacking effective communication is not background difference — it’s that campus environments offer no right space for people willing to express themselves.
Against these findings, I put forward the concept of “emptiness” — designing spaces and moments that strip away the noise of digital mediation and create conditions for genuine, in-person encounter.
The project approached this from two perspectives: psychology — understanding the emotional barriers and impulses that prevent students from connecting — and environment — redesigning the physical campus to invite the kind of spontaneous, meaningful interaction that technology has displaced.
Why This Still Matters
This was one of my earliest projects to combine rigorous research — questionnaires, psychology literature, in-person interviews — with design concept development. The methodology I built here became foundational: start with the human need, understand the systemic barriers, then propose an intervention.
The core insight — that people wantto connect but the environment doesn’t support it — echoes through my later work. Whether designing AI agents that encourage trust, CRM tools that support relationship-building, or health apps that sustain engagement, the pattern is the same: design the conditions for connection, not just the tool.