{"schema_version":1,"assessment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_opportunity320_20260801","source_experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_full320_20260801","cell_id":"negative_space_design__architecture_urban_planning","archetype_slug":"negative_space_design","domain_slug":"architecture_urban_planning","title":"Protected Arrival Field for Civic Forecourts","opportunity_summary":"Test whether selectively relocating movable, non-required forecourt elements and preserving a bounded open arrival field makes the principal entrance and accessible approach more legible, with less hesitation, route deviation, conflict, and obstruction than reactive object-by-object management or added wayfinding cues alone.","adopter_authorizer":"The public property or building operator, acting with accessibility review and consultation with affected permit holders and user representatives.","scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":3,"rationale":"The proposal could reduce accessibility barriers, arrival uncertainty, and movement conflicts, but the packet provides no site observations establishing problem frequency, severity, or effect magnitude."},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":3,"rationale":"Visitors, disabled users, facilities staff, event organizers, and permit holders have identifiable interests in legible and usable access, but no stakeholder demand, complaints, adoption requests, or willingness to change placement practices are supplied."},"incremental_advantage":{"score":3,"rationale":"A reversible protected field could address both perceptual competition and physical path conflicts more directly than reactive moves or larger signs, but comparative improvement and losses in comfort, activity, or edge circulation remain untested."},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":2,"rationale":"The bounded-absence mechanism is clearly articulated, but prior art is explicitly unsearched and the packet cannot distinguish it from established clear-zone, accessibility, pedestrian-circulation, wayfinding, or plaza-management practices."},"technical_implementability":{"score":4,"rationale":"The proposed first intervention uses movable items, temporary field marking, observation, and rollback rather than construction; implementation still requires site mapping, accessibility review, storage or substitute locations, and coordination with users."},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":4,"rationale":"A building or public-property operator is identified as the decision authority, with relevant review and consultation pathways; feasibility may still depend on permits, divided control of objects, and obligations to vendors or service users."},"evidence_readiness":{"score":3,"rationale":"The candidate specifies observable outcomes, separate problem and intervention falsifiers, a baseline, a rival, and a reversible pilot, but lacks prespecified sampling windows, thresholds, measurement procedures, and controls for weather, events, entrance operations, and visitor mix."},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":4,"rationale":"The approach is reversible and includes explicit exclusions and rollback triggers protecting accessible routes, required information, services, and legitimate users; residual risks include exclusionary interpretation, displaced conflicts, reduced perceived safety, and unequal benefit for blind or low-vision users."},"scalability":{"score":3,"rationale":"Relocation and marking could be repeated without major construction, but suitable field geometry, weather exposure, program needs, ownership, accessibility cues, and social use are site-specific, so transferability is uncertain."}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"A bounded baseline study at one civic-building entrance, including an element competition map, representative-period movement observations, accessibility review, short user reports, contextual-variable recording, and an analysis against the problem falsifier.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["One entrance is studied for several representative observation periods.","Existing staff records and site access are available without major data-acquisition fees.","Resource-equivalent labor includes study design, observers, accessibility expertise, coordination, and analysis.","No live relocation or permanent physical work is included."]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"Preparation and execution of the candidate's two-to-four-week reversible pilot at one entrance after the problem is validated, including documentation, temporary markings, relocation labor, storage, accessibility review, user coordination, observation, and rollback readiness.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Only movable, non-required items are relocated.","No demolition, utility work, permanent paving, or custom architectural construction is required.","Existing seating, shade, services, and required cues can be preserved or repositioned with limited substitute provision.","Permit-holder coordination does not require material compensation or litigation."]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Operationalizing a validated arrival-field arrangement across the entrances of one multi-use civic building, including detailed layout design, accessibility and safety reviews, furniture or equipment relocation, substitute service locations, operating rules, staff training, communications, and initial evaluation.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["The launch remains primarily operational and landscape-management work rather than capital reconstruction.","Several entrance conditions and affected user groups require separate review.","Some storage, replacement markings, minor fixtures, or accessible substitutes may be needed.","Major facade, pavement, drainage, lighting, or security reconstruction is excluded."]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"Annual resource-equivalent cost for placement audits, event and vendor coordination, temporary-equipment management, accessibility checks, periodic outcome observation, marking maintenance, and corrective relocation at one civic building.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["The protected field requires active management because movable elements can reaccumulate.","Monitoring is periodic rather than continuously staffed.","No major construction maintenance or dedicated enforcement program is included.","The field is managed through normal facilities and event operations with incremental specialist review."]}},"research_burden":"MODERATE","earliest_credible_horizon":"0_TO_3_MONTHS","pipeline_gates":{"recognizable_externally_supportable_problem":{"status":"YES","reason":"The candidate defines an observable problem—hesitation, backtracking, missed entrances, route conflicts, and obstruction encounters associated with competing forecourt elements—and supplies a problem falsifier."},"identifiable_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"The public property or building operator is identified as decision authority, with accessibility review and consultation with permit holders and user representatives."},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"YES","reason":"The claim that a bounded open arrival field improves entrance identification and movement outcomes is distinguishable from reactive object moves and the stated rival of adding signs, contrast, lighting, or arrows while retaining existing placements."},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"A one-entrance, time-bounded observational study can compare representative high-competition and low-competition conditions and reject the problem diagnosis if entrance recognition is already prompt and conflicts are not associated with competing elements."},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"YES","reason":"No categorical stop is evident within the packet: the operator has stated authority, and required infrastructure, accessibility, services, authorized uses, displacement risks, consultation, halt criteria, and baseline restoration are explicitly addressed, although site review remains necessary."},"implementation_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"UNCERTAIN","reason":"The candidate bounds the intervention operationally but supplies no site dimensions, element inventory, labor requirements, storage needs, permit constraints, substitute-service requirements, or construction dependencies from which a reliable implementation range could be established."}},"blocking_evidence":["Representative baseline observations showing whether arrival hesitation, route deviation, conflicts, or obstructions are materially present and associated with competing movable elements.","Accessibility review establishing which elements and cues are required and whether a protected field can benefit mobility-aid, blind, and low-vision users without weakening detectable guidance.","A prespecified comparison design with sampling periods, outcome definitions, decision thresholds, and records of weather, events, entrance operations, and visitor mix.","Evidence that relocated items have safe, usable destinations and that seating, shade, services, authorized vendors, and secondary routes will not be materially harmed.","Comparative evidence that protected openness adds benefit beyond ordinary obstruction removal or enhanced wayfinding.","Site-specific resource and authority information sufficient to refine cost, permit, storage, and coordination requirements."],"next_evidence_step":"At one candidate entrance, conduct a four-week non-interventional baseline study using prespecified representative periods: compare movement outcomes when mapped approach zones have higher versus lower competition from movable elements, recording entrance-identification delay, hesitation, route deviation, conflicts, obstructions, accessibility observations, weather, events, entrance status, and visitor mix. Do not proceed to relocation if users already identify the entrance promptly or the measured problems are not associated with competing elements.","research_questions":["Are entrance-identification delays, hesitation, route deviations, conflicts, and obstructions materially associated with movable foreground competitors rather than recess, weak architectural cues, closure, or absent sightlines?","Which objects and messages are legally, operationally, or accessibility-required, and which can be relocated without reducing detectable guidance or essential services?","Does a protected arrival field outperform baseline management and added-wayfinding alternatives on prespecified movement and user-report outcomes?","Are benefits and harms distributed differently among wheelchair users, mobility-aid users, blind or low-vision pedestrians, first-time visitors, vendors, and people using seating, shade, or services?","Does relocation shift congestion or obstruction to boundaries, secondary routes, storage areas, or event operations?","How do weather, perceived welcome, incidental observation, and safety perceptions change when activity is removed from the field?","Is the mechanism distinct from or merely a context-specific composition of existing clear-zone, circulation, accessibility, wayfinding, and plaza-management practices?","What ongoing governance prevents gradual reaccumulation or coercive use of the field against vulnerable users?"] ,"recommendation":"VALIDATE_PROBLEM_FIRST","uncertainty_constraints":["No external evidence establishes problem prevalence, severity, stakeholder demand, or realized impact.","Prior art is unsearched, so novelty, comparative distinctiveness, and practice prevalence are unmeasured.","The causal association between competing elements and observed arrival problems is hypothetical.","The intervention's comparative effect and distribution across user groups are untested.","Site geometry, operations, weather, ownership, permits, required infrastructure, and substitute locations are unspecified.","Cost bands are resource-equivalent planning ranges based on stated scope assumptions, not exact estimates.","Scalability beyond one entrance or civic-building context is unsupported."],"closed_book_prior_art_boundary":"The sealed packet explicitly marks prior art as UNSEARCHED. This assessment therefore makes no claim that protected arrival fields are novel, uncommon, proprietary, or distinct from existing accessibility, clear-zone, pedestrian-circulation, wayfinding, landscape-design, or plaza-management practice."}