According to the research, I found that dog parks represent small-scale gathering spots where social interaction can occur to improve the personal connections and interpersonal interactions that facilitate neighborhood livability and urban quality of life. And time spent in dog parks was associated with frequency of social interactions, which itself had a positive association with life satisfaction and neighborhood engagement.

For this project, I redesigned the Morton Williams supermarket in New Jersey to become a dog-friendly market that allows people to drop off their dog before they start shopping. The project combines the coffee shop into the dog playground so when the dogs are playing, their owners could sit in the cafe to chat and eat. The reason for doing this is to increase people’s social interaction through owners' same relationship with pets. Also, solidify the community by welcoming people and pets together from all different backgrounds and walks of life. 

The intervention concept started with my observation of the market storefront without any place for tying dogs while most of my neighbours, also including myself, actually own pets. Sometimes when I walk the dog and want to get some groceries before getting back home, there’s no place for me to tie the dog leash before I get into the market. I chatted with some other dog owners and found that they have the same issues which is kind of inconvenient. And that’s the reason why I brought up an idea of the indoor dog park.