A City Embracing Wellbeing

Governments have traditionally focused on measuring GDP and physical wellness to understand the success of their communities. However, our needs go beyond health and money. Santa Monica is one city leading the way towards understanding and improving the holistic wellbeing of their residents, and they are doing it with multidimensional data. Every two years, Santa Monica publishes a Wellbeing Index that takes stock of the community’s wellbeing, and the City uses their data findings to create positive change. At their 2019 Wellbeing Summit, the City brought together residents, businesses, wellbeing experts, and Santa Monica employees to discuss what communities need to thrive. To serve as a key visual display for the day, Schema created a bright, approachable, and informative media installation highlighting 100 curated data findings on Santa Monica’s wellbeing and the City’s associated programming.

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An Engaging Media Installation

The Wellbeing team approached Schema to design a large data visualization installation that would present findings to residents throughout the summit. After discussing various opportunities for the site, Schema and the Wellbeing team settled on a 7-foot-wide data-driven generative software installation positioned at the venue’s entrance.

Curated Data Visualizations

For the installation, Schema curated 100 recent findings from Santa Monica’s data, which corresponded with the six dimensions of wellbeing as defined by the Index, and they also highlighted associated City programming. Visitors could watch at length, diving deep into the information, or briefly view compelling facts as they experienced the summit’s offerings throughout the day.