Aria Hill, 2nd year Architecture student, has been named a finalist in the international Bubble Design "Eliminate Loneliness Through Design" competition! This was an open international competition to all who wished to submit. This particular competition, entitled "Eliminate Loneliness Through Design," Bubble asked what designers could do to eliminate loneliness in society.

An excerpt from the competition brief, "The 'Eliminate Loneliness' competition provides you a public platform to tackle the issue of loneliness and isolation in society through design. We challenge you to set your imagination alight, and consider the systems, spaces, and interactions that could generate meaningfulness and connection in today's world. Our aim is to collect design ideas geared towards tackling loneliness, whether this be on the individual or collective, micro or macro, digital or tangible, product or space, is entirely up to you. We ask you to question the fundamental causes of loneliness, their flows, conditions, and effects. Following the ethos of Bubble, we then ask you to operate across multiple spheres, reaching beyond convention to tackle the issue of loneliness through a creative, design led solution."

Aria's entry, entitled "Restorative Play," describes her entry as follows, "Loneliness transcends nearly any identifiers which typically divide the human population. Play, usually regarded as an act only acceptable for children to partake in, produces endorphins in the brain, which in turn, gives the party participating in the action a temporary feeling of happiness. Additionally, if a party of individuals collectively experience activities that encourage the participation of all members, interpersonal relationships may start to germinate. Taking advantage of this information, one can suppose that if three strangers were to embark on a journey - a multi-sensory journey - in which the challenges, or playful elements, were not made aware of before the start of said journey, the feeling of loneliness may temporarily be satiated by their play and may be permanently satiated by the relationships developed through the timeline of their plight of recreation."

Aria entered this competition over Spring Break to help further increase her overall design capabilities and to hone in on the ability to iterate quickly within the time demands of most competitions. Aria is humbled to be recognized as a finalist in the first international design competition she ever entered, and throughly enjoyed the entire process of this competition. She strongly suggests everyone compete in competitions like these, you will undoubtedly see progress in your work as a result.

Congratulations, Aria!