Mark your diary: Laura Kurgan’s DCrit talk on March 24 February 8, 2009
Posted by rda1 in : Outside inspiration , add a commentI have held 8 spaces for a talk by Laura Kurgan on March 24. It’s part of the SVA Design Crit MFA lecture series, and Laura’s from Columbia Architecture Program’s Spatial Information Design Lab. She’ll be talking about the Million Dollar Blocks project. I want those presenting in week 10 (Nobu and Sara) to attend this (it’s the day of our week 9 class), so there’s room for 6 more from class. We’ll discuss on 2/10.
Papercamp is this weekend February 4, 2009
Posted by rda1 in : Outside inspiration , add a commentSome of you might be interested in this, just in from Matt Jones (of Nokia/Dopplr fame): He writes:The London ‘prototype’ was pretty damn fun(http://adactio.com/journal/1546/), and this weekend, http://www.barcamp.org/Papercamp-NY-2009hope you guys might be able to make it, or put the word out… …So here I am putting the word out. Albany anyone?
About the header on this blog February 4, 2009
Posted by rda1 in : 10_Storytelling, 11_Ethics, 3_Public space, Outside inspiration , add a commentTerry Richardson’s garish, super-model-filled ad campaign for a luxe vodka brand has been up for months in the Broadway Lafayette subway station near NYU. Cutting up/tagging ads is a long-established subway tradition; all part of that dynamic stance between authors/audiences, designers/users we’ve been talking about in class. So while a bit of glamor’s welcome in trying times, these posters invite specific outrage: One day, a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 appeared over the ads. It simply read: Public Space for Public Good. And here it is. We in SDPS drink to that, but perhaps not fancy liquor ; )
Week 4: Introducing Service Design…and our first guests February 4, 2009
Posted by rda1 in : 4_ServiceDesign, Assignments, Guests , add a commentIn week 4, Ari and Angela will lead the review of our Out+About assignment. We’ll review the parameters we’ve come up with for characterizing public space (that whiteboard will make sense…). I’ll be introducing you to some key ideas in Service Design. Then, we’re lucky to have two visiting visual information designers present. Sarah Slobin and Matt Ericson are going to join us – both with mucho experience from The New York Times. This article about the print-digital revolution at The Times, from last month’s New York magazine, provides a nice little preview.
Week 3-4 Out+About assignment February 4, 2009
Posted by rda1 in : 3_Public space, 4_ServiceDesign, Assignments, Presentations , 1 comment so farClass: Please find instructions for this week’s out+about assignment on the SDPS server space, under Week 4, here.As instructed, once you’ve done the exercise, you can upload your photos and notes to the server space, under Week 4, here . That seems preferable to editing/commenting this post with links. Either way, we want to pool everyone’s material. Thanks, and have fun out there!
Week 3 recap: Background to this week’s assignment February 4, 2009
Posted by rda1 in : 3_Public space , add a commentThis week, we’ve been defining public space. In our discussion of the readings so far, we’ve already:a) characterized public space in relation to the public sphere and to private/commercial space. b) identified a relationship between form and narrative: Physical spaces, products, services tell stories about the forces – social, economic, political intangibles – that define them.c) revealed an interesting tension: Although spaces prescribe behavior, how we act in them is still up to us. Back to that idea of agency. We’re social, reflexive. We transact and interact, conform and cooperate, but more or less, we also act up, hack, improvise, subvert, and ignore what’s been designed into an experience, to reappropriate it as our own. And guess what, at the risk of tautology/stating the obvious, how much more or less depends both on us, and the circumstances – that’s where the tension and dynamism lies. That’s why context is so important. So it’s time to visit some contexts…next post is on how to do that in your out and about assignment.
Open Source and Public Space February 3, 2009
Posted by alj263 in : 3_Public space, Outside inspiration, Uncategorized , add a comment
Building on the Low and Smith reading from this week, Wired has an interesting article on Mark Gorton‘s idea to bring the open source movement to urban planning (and thus public space). Gorton is one of the founders of Limewire, the unstable and ever-annoying P2P network, but he is also the single largest supporter of Transportation Alternatives, the New York-based transit advocacy organization. TA is a great organization, largely responsible for the increased presence of protected and/or highly visible bike lanes in the city, among other initiatives.
Gorton started The Open Planning Project (TOPP) in 1999 as an exploratory project to see how open source tools could improve public services, especially in the area of transportation. They have some interesting projects worth checking out, including Grand Army Plaza.
This is an interview with Gorton from Streetfilms.org, a great site dedicated to chronicling novel planning solutions.
Week 3: Understanding public space February 3, 2009
Posted by rda1 in : 3_Public space , add a commentThis week, our two reading groups are going to share with each other what they got from the two first chapters of Setha Low and Neil Smith’s The Politics of Public Space – our presenters (this week: Cynthia and Derek) will share with the class what differentiates public space from the public domain, summarize key descriptors that can help us differentiate public from private, and present historical and contemporary examples of how social forces (self-organized chaos, then military and commercial interests, then an interplay of all) shape our sense of physical places: what form social/political narrative takes in cities…before we go out in the snow to see for ourselves.
Week 2 recap: Designer as integrative thinker – The Opposable Mind February 3, 2009
Posted by rda1 in : 2_Designers , add a commentIn week 2, we were looking at what it means to take on the role of a designer – at ITP, in business, in public space. We reviewed a key chapter of Roger Martin’s ‘The Opposable Mind’, where we he examines the relationship between stance, tools and experience. Each of these inform our capacity for integrative thinking, the kind of thinking, he argues, that the design process demands – to get us from observing what is, to coming up with what could be. Links to interviews with him are now on the blog roll. We also introduced other ways of thinking about design as a process: Of invention and explanation (Nick Durrant’s matrix of articulated/unarticulated, met/unmet needs) and as one of storytelling – gathering, interpreting and representing information (the essence of last year’s mapping class). Hans Rosling’s TED06 video was a engaging example of complex information shown in a compelling way. That’s also on the blogroll.
Week 1 recap: From individual creativity to effective outcomes February 3, 2009
Posted by rda1 in : Uncategorized , add a commentIn week one, we introduced some big ideas that will become central to our understanding of service design, and of designers’ role in public space: What did Obama mean in his Inaugural address when he talked of ‘joining imagination to common purpose’? Can there be such a thing as entrepreneurial government that’s effective? Or regulated enterprise that’s economically worthwhile? This tension is something we’re bound to revisit as the semester progresses. This class is about working out ways to be effective as design thinkers and makers in all kinds of contexts, including and especially in public.Those questions are so huge, and topical – of the moment – but back to first terms at the outset: Can we define creativity, innovation and design? What’s the relationship between them? The Design Council in the UK draws up a framework (see page 49 of this pdf) that defines creativity as an individual quality, one of agency; innovative as an attribute of the environment that allows creative agency to flourish, that through the design process, nurtures skills, values and experience to produce effective outcomes. So now you know where that first diamond diagram comes from.