In this section, we cover some of the setup, staging and logistics based on the experience of our iterations of the science communication laundromat. 

This is broken down into:

• Comfort + care the set-up in terms of accommodation, facilitation, food, and shared values
• Facilitation. planning + time including planning the stages and example runsheets with rough timings
• Props + space how we have set up the space to help with the stages of the laundromat process

Generally, this website assumes that you are facilitating a group laundromat experience of some kind (residential, or online), with some pointers for online or blended options.  

The laundromat is premised on helping scientists to be reflexive and thoughtful about their engagement.

For those who operate in research areas that have a high degree of social licence and are well-supported in seeking to do science communication, the laundromat won't necessarily be emotionally taxing. Sometimes though, reflexivity means grappling with issues that are less than comfortable. This might be about the culture in which participants operate, perhaps with diversity, equity, and inclusion shortcomings. Sometimes, the realisation that others might disagree on the ethics of a particular scientific endeavour might be uncomfortable. Or the identification of power imbalances within research and engagement can be challenging.

All of this means that a safe and comfortable space is vital, and we see the provision of that space as central to our ethos, or something that exists in our values… 

Shared values 

In New Zealand, we might refer to ‘manaakitanga’, which loosely translates as hospitality, and entails showing respect, generosity, and care for the people who are attending your place, or using your services. For Te Pūnaha Matatini, maanakitanga is a core value, which extends to mutual respect and reciprocity. We see a spirit of manaakitanga as vital to the laundromat’s success. 

We have found that because our participants, though broad in disciplines and practices all belong to an organisation with clear values, we have been lucky that the social dynamics have always helped create a safe and supportive environment. You can read more about the values that come with our organisational associations in the about>values section.  

Different disciplinary communities may vary according to their theories, methodologies, and codes, and institutions may have similar variances. If your participants don’t enter with a shared culture and agreed-upon norms and values, you may need a process to get people on the same page before you start. This might be a discussion you can have at stage 1. 

The venue for in-person laundromats

Our in-person laundromats have been held outside the (usually university) environments where our participants normally work, and have been run on a multi-day residential basis. We recognise the privilege in being funded by an organisation that pays the costs for our scientist-communicators to attend, and that most have the autonomy to schedule their time to allow it. 

Being away from the distractions of the normal working day helps people mode-shift, and we have consistently heard that participants have managed to stay off their devices and away from the call of the office partly because of the offsite nature of the laundromats, and the analogue nature of the activities. 

We have tended to use venues that are set up with comfortable but relatively basic accommodation, such as ‘retreat centres’ that are like a nicer version of a school camp! This might be shared rooms and shared bathrooms, but we try and give people their own room for sleeping if possible. 

Communal spaces

The key communal spaces are somewhere to eat together, a shared space with a projector, somewhere to suspend a washing line, set up washing machines and room to spread out to work. And, ideally, if you have project groups, breakout spaces where they can work together. We have found that people gravitate to sitting on the floor, or on sofas (or outside) in preference to regular tables and chairs if there is a choice. 

Transport

We have also been lucky in having support at Te Pūnaha Matatini to arrange other logistics like travel. For many, having had someone arrange those details for them is a welcome change and something they'd often be doing themselves (or for other people). This contributes to the feeling of entering a place where the participants’ needs are cared for. 

The venue for online laundromats

For an online workshop, participants have both joined from one space (a shared office, or a room booked in their institution) and we have dialed in, or they have all joined from different locations. Both times, we have sent some resources as a ‘laundromat-in-a-box’ – zines; a washing line and pegs; prompts; and wheel/hanging out timeline worksheets. Our experience was largely determined by the level of COVID restriction, but the communal nature of coming together (even if we are not there in person) is preferable, if it’s safe to do so. That seems to be because some of the resources work best with physical, communal input, and the material process of writing and pinning things in a very lo-fi way helps underline the iterative nature of the process.

In-person catering 

As you will see from the schedules below, eating together plays a large part in the laundromat experience! We've found it is vital for the sense of maanakitanga, and meal-breaks become a valuable time to keep turning over the ideas from the laundromat sessions.

We usually have an external caterer, but the attendees have had some responsibility for either assisting with prep or clearing up. We go 100% vegetarian (and have had no pushback on this), with other dietary needs catered for. We have hot drinks available on a self-serve basis all the time. No alcohol is provided, but people are invited to bring their own. 

Online catering

For our online laundromats, we have provided lunch deliveries so that a group can work together and eat together. It’s one way of making the laundromat a little bit different to other meetings, especially if they are being held in a familiar work environment. 

Facilitation

We have run our laundromats with a principal facilitator (Rhian), and a secondary facilitator (Jo) who also prepares the materials and the staging and looks after the space. We have also had an observer and critical friend (Maja) who helped us gather fieldnotes and was vital in aiding us to become more reflexive about our engagement practice, so we could loop our ‘doing’ back into our thinking: a process that is both informed by public engagement theory and embeds the practice of doing it (we also published about it too, with a hope that theory could inform practice could inform theory…). A facilitator needs to have an understanding of science communication theory and practice in order to elevate this from a workshop that helps scicomm engagement planning (which obviously still has value, but doesn’t help with meeting our objectives of connecting the scientist-communicators with some of the wider PES or science in society concepts). 

We’ve also had support to book the travel and logistics for the participants, and venues and caterers who have been on the ball and helped us run smoothly. 

Participant numbers

With our two-person facilitation team, we have done in-person laundromats with up to 20 people. We have also had mixed-size groups together, where some groups are up to six people, and there is a mix of individuals and pairs.

A large laundromat works if there are a couple of big projects where multiple people work together. Equally, a cohort of individual scientists works well, as they can interact with each other even if their projects are really different. 

It can feel unbalanced when you have groups of very different sizes as it is hard to calibrate the amount of time that projects share and present for. Ideally, keeping the overall number of people to an absolute maximum of 20, and the sizes of groups similar works well. 

We have also (especially online) done single-project laundromats with groups of 4–6 people. These also work well. A multi-project online laundromat would take a huge amount of energy and planning! 

Using individual stages

We have conceptualised the laundromat as a structured programme where the steps build on each other, sometimes overlapping and revisiting content (as captured in the zine workbook). It can feel repetitive, but that is very much by design, and participants have frequently noted that similar questions with a subtly different angle rinse out more and different information each time.  However, we have also used some individual steps as standalone exercises:

• We have used a version of the pre-laundromat survey with several previous workshop groups, including questions about roles and responsibilities within a project team. This has proved useful for bringing to the fore, especially in teams that have the intention to work in a transdisciplinary way, where assumptions about responsibility for communication and engagement lie.
• ‘Name tag’ can be a useful icebreaker in any circumstance where there is a degree of trust and safety amongst participants. Even in less overtly reflexive situations, such as in a class with students, it still works (though expect inherently fewer personal disclosures and more focus on things like hobbies). 
• We have used tailored stage 2: peg ‘em up prompts in one-day project sessions to help get everyone on the same page, and work out the expectations and assumptions team members have about the engagement activities.
• The wheel at step four has been used in shorter engagement workshops with research teams successfully.

Though other steps like step 5 ‘what's in the spin’ audiences and messages have not been used in isolation, they could certainly be used as a repeat exercise related to a new engagement activity for a project team who have already done a full process, or practitioners who want to refresh areas of their practice.

Laundromat time structure

In-person sessions

In-person, we have run these in various time-block combinations, sometimes starting in the afternoon or evening then having a full day and a half day; sometimes two very full days and a night, or similar variations. Overall, we have found that it comes out as four or five half-day chunks, with room for a bit of downtime and for project teams to talk about other things (like their actual scientific research) in planned gaps (so the social and non-laundromat time does not eat into the washing time!).

Online sessions

Online, we have tended to do a series of structured virtual meetings over a number of weeks. Our earlier iterations were very hands-on, where we did the stages in real-time with us as facilitators on the call. They were valuable, but very time-intensive. Later, we tried shorter check-ins where we debriefed and then briefed in exercises but largely let the group self-organise and either meet together face-to-face between online check-ins, or stay online together to work through it without us. There are pros and cons to each, and you probably have a sense of the dynamic that will work best for your participants. 

Below are example runsheets for both situations:

Tuning the personality of any experience to the audience and context can increase participant comfort and engagement. That is the intent of staging the laundromat space with props that foreground the metaphors that liken thinking about and planning scicomm to a laundry cycle. It’s playful, it’s definitely not a ‘normal science space’, and the lo-fi-ness invites unresolved, in-progress thinking. 

This draws on ideas from scenography: a practice rooted in creating performance environments in theatre, but increasingly recognised outside that domain; more specifically, ideas of ‘social scenography’ (Hächler, 2015) that come from from a museum context. Hachler says ‘social scenography’ in museum exhibition design is how the ‘social, interactive, communicative’ dimensions are enhanced through scenographic means. On one end of the spectrum is a curated space; on the other, a social space. Elements such as ‘invitation to touch’; static vs. ephemeral work; ‘white cube’ vs. laboratory, and ‘visitor observer’ vs. ‘visitor actor’ mark out the poles, and calibrating these is how a temporary installation can become a ‘space’ through what Hächler (Hächler, 2015, p. 353) terms ‘the intersection of content-based conception, spatial arrangement, and social praxis/activity on the part of the visitors’. Which all goes to say, cardboard washing machines have a purpose! 

A washing machine is not essential: all the exercises can be done via the zine and worksheets, but we have found it fun to have a box as the canvas for a project. Most of the exercises have a home on the washing machine and seeing them become covered in notes and scribbles as the laundromat develops is useful to see how far a project has come. Boxes are bulky and create scale and impact with relative ease (and cheapness). Associated props are easy to come by all add up to a designed deliberateness.

You can find details on constructing a washing machine in the resources section. You’ll also find a key component there: the zine workbook, which as well as housing the content to help participants through the steps also reinforces the visual language of the space. 

This is how we have brought the props and materials together in our laundromats:

1: washing lines and pegs

A washing line (which is also included in a laundromat-in-a-box) gives a place to hang up completed stage 1 tasks (1.3: ‘Drawing it out‛ you and your engagement).

2: ironing boards and laundry baskets

An ironing board with the cover removed becomes a handy portable table, and plastic ‘laundry baskets’ for each group are a useful way of keeping odd bits of paper together.

3: cardboard washing machines

the washing machine itself is made from a cardboard box, with a plastic container for a door, and a milk bottle top knob. The sliders are foldback clips. 

4: garment-shaped paper 

Having garment-shaped prompts or extra paper helps milk the ‘hanging out’ metaphor!

5: drying racks

A cheap drying rack and pegs gives extra hanging space for prompts or notes.