GO4: SDPS’s services for New York’s New Jobless June 9, 2009
Posted by rda1 in : 10_Storytelling, 14_Final, 4_ServiceDesign, 6_DesignAsUrbanIntervention, Assignments, Class admin, Guests, Outside inspiration, Presentations , add a commentChin Up!
The students of the SDPS Spring 2009 class proudly present the full write-up of our end-of-semester assignment:
GO4: A ‘Go Bag’ for New York’s Recently Laid-Off
GO4 is a suite of services for New York’s New Jobless, connecting people to resources they need for the arc of time between a layoff, surviving unemployment and getting back on their feet:
Click the image above or here to download the full presentation
For further details about this project, please read on or get in touch.
About GO4:
After 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, New York City’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) ran a campaign called Ready New York to prompt individuals to prepare a bag of essentials to have handy in case of emergency, whenever a natural or man-made disaster called for a quick exit out of town.
This year’s ‘Go Bag’ responds to New Yorkers facing a crisis of a different kind:
The economic downturn – intangible and invisible and not site-specific, but no less disastrous for some.
It’s a concept proposed by an architect and an interaction designer and articulated by a group of ITP grad students who live and work and study (in) NYC:
In late ’08, two friends, Don Shillingburg, architect with Peter Walker + Partners, and Rachel Abrams (class instructor), had been wondering what the city (and The City) would make of all the human capacity expelled from office cubicles, washing up in neighborhood coffee shops and public spaces. They conceived the GO4 project, treating design as a form of social, cultural intervention, later inspired by Obama’s inaugural address about what can be achieved when “…imagination is joined to common purpose”.
In spring ’09, Rachel was teaching this class at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, and set her students an assignment based on the original project.
Participating students:
Karla Calderon, Angela Chen, Derek Chung, Cynthia Hilmoe, Sara Huong, Madeline Jannotta, Ari Joseph, Gloria Kim, Sonaar Luthra, Jeehyun Moon, Nobuyuki Nakaguchi, Kristin OFriel, Nahanaeli Schelling, Jonathan Ystad. Their individual contact info is available here.
The students’ response:
Over three sessions, the students gathered material, organized it and represented their proposition.
Specific roles to introduce the design process
In pairs, students each took on specific roles, to focus on and explore particular tasks at key stages in the design process:
Investigative reporters, City clients, typical NYC new jobless, design strategists, interface designers, typical subscribers of the Go4 services – jobless people’s outlooks transformed, and historians from tomorrow looking back from the future.
This way, each pair focused on a stage of the design lifecycle: from discovering, defining, designing, detailing, deploying through documenting the outcomes and next phase.
Guest critics
The students presented twice, first to service designer, Ben Fullerton of IDEO (San Francisco), formerly of Live | Work, London, then to public space advocates, Raj Kottamasu (NYC Parks Department, Arts Program Manager for Freshkills Park) and Cassim Shepard (Editor, Urban Omnibus.net)
The Outcomes:
In a concept document of single slides for each stage in the process, the project is summarized as a slideshow. Some highlights below, from the full presentation (which you can download from the top of this post).
The slides tell the story of a proposition worth responding to, and a plausible design process towards an effective, context-appropriate outcome.
It is both attractive and topical, timely and collaborative document of their proposed intervention;
It reflects the design methods that the students had been exploring all semester.
We’ve decided to publish the results not only to attract attention to the skills, process, values and experiences that these ITP students draw on to tackle real-world issues, but also to articulate what could be done to smooth out the bumpy time many people are navigating adapting to right now.
Weeks 13-14: Around town April 23, 2009
Posted by rda1 in : 14_Final, Outside inspiration , add a commentRelated to the final assignment, I recommended these talks during week 13-14:
Frank Duffy, ex-President of the UK’s RIBA (equivalent to the American Institute of Architects), talking about his new book, Work and the City, at DEGW
An industrial study break with Urban Omnibus and WNYC to Newtown Creek – on Thursday
Saskia Sassen’s lecture “What is Next for Global Cities: Post-financial crisis scenarios” at the Architecture League
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: For all we discussed about the importance of format for interpreting and representing content: Sophie Calle’s “Take Care of Yourself” at Paula Cooper Gallery – til the end of the month (maybe early June?)
And this interesting summary of open thinking in a context of closed-minded fear – from the Rocky Mountain Institute’s e-newsletter (overlook the company promotion to focus on the substantive point here!)
“When people feel that things are bad and getting worse, there is a natural tendency for them to get defensive, act selfishly and close off from the world. But when people see concrete investments in solutions to problems, they engage and become part of the process. [...] The great irony, [...] is that in order to get people to embrace change, one must reinforce stability. [...] we have consistently and forcefully called for the same thing: driving the efficient and restorative use of resources to make the world secure, just, prosperous, and life-sustaining. ”
Week 12: Gems about public space all over the blogspace April 13, 2009
Posted by rda1 in : Outside inspiration, Uncategorized , add a commentThanks to Nobu and Ari for some great resources this week:Ideo’s Urban Pre-Planning methodology, featured in a Fall 2007 issue of Metropolis, here.The Geography of Buzz. Our friends at the Spatial Information Design Lab looking at LA/NY glamor – from Million Dollar Blocks to…million dollar frocks…wahhh.My review of Postopolis LA, in conversation with Alissa WalkerAnd, as promised, City of Sound has transcribed the excellent talk by Ben Bratton, from Postopolis LA.
Experience Mapping April 6, 2009
Posted by cdh263 in : Outside inspiration , add a commentCynthia Hilmoe
Someone had told me last December to map user experience to help me clarify what I was going to make for my Thesis Project. I had in mind a system of toys, apparel, do-it-yourself kits and an online portal to help encourage kids to connect with Mother Nature. I got it: You need to map or anticipate user experience, but what did that really mean? I hadn’t seen any good examples at ITP (that’s not to say there is no good experience mapping/planning going on), only heard this advice.
An outside critic at Thesis Class referred me to two great articles. I recommend them to anyone who is interested in experience mapping and modeling as techniques used in service design projects. The first presents a model-based procedure for transitioning from analyzing precedents to synthesizing a preferred state or design. The second article provides a universal framework for analyzing and describing a product/service experience cycle. Digital copies are hard to find. Look in the ACM Digital Library from here.
Dubberly, Hugh and Shelley Evenson, May/June 2008, Interactive Magazine, The Experience Cycle
Dubberly, Hugh and Shelley Evenson, RIck Robinson, March 2008, The Analysis-Synthesis Bridge Model
Free Fresh Kills Site Tours March 20, 2009
Posted by gsk240 in : 3_Public space, 4_ServiceDesign, 8_Fieldtrip, Outside inspiration, Uncategorized , add a commentI found out from someone who works for the landscape architecture office Field Operations that that NYC Parks Department gives free tours of the Fresh Kills site in Staten Island. I found this exciting because I have an odd fascination with Staten Island (and its free ferry).
You just sign up ahead of time. They pick you up from the station the day of the tour. I’m going on Saturday, April 4 in the afternoon if anyone wants to join me!
The DT’s Public Space Potluck March 18! March 6, 2009
Posted by rda1 in : Outside inspiration , 1 comment so farMark your calendars!The next Public Space Potluck is set for Wednesday, March 18, at 6:30pm under the palm trees at the World Financial Center Wintergarden. This location is a “public-private” space, going along with the theme of our upcoming Design Trust Council event “Public Space / Private Money,” a discussion on how public spaces funded by private investments can retain a public identity. The Wintergarden is surely a wonderful asset to the public, but is it really a public space?
From Wintergarden manager Brookfield Properties:
“…The world-renowned Winter Garden is a spectacular 10-story enclosed glass atrium featuring an enormous indoor sanctuary with a cascading marble semicircular staircase, fashioned of Italian marble, leading to a grove of sixteen 45-foot palm trees. . . . the Winter Garden is a celebrated venue for performances, site-specific installations, premieres and commissioned works – year-round and free to the public. Over 40 restaurants, major brand and specialty retailers and business services make shopping and dining an unforgettable experience.” (emphasis by the Design Trust)
Inspired by Design Trust Board Member Zach McKown, who hosted a dinner on the Brooklyn Bridge last summer, the Design Trust staff has organized a series of potluck dinners in public spaces in New York City. Dinners were held in Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza, on the Staten Island Ferry, and most recently at the DT office to celebrate the inauguration of President Obama, with an accompanying ping-pong tournament.
Please write to rsvp@designtrust.org if you plan to attend.
We look forward to seeing you there!
The DT Staff
Design Trust for Public Space
338 West 39th Street, 10th Floor
New York City 10018
t: 212-695-2432 x13
f: 212-695-6101
What would Google do? March 6, 2009
Posted by rda1 in : 6_DesignAsUrbanIntervention, Outside inspiration , 1 comment so farI’m quoting Cynthia here – thanks for directing us to this (and for the compliment!). Check this out everyone:
On the Media, 2/27/09, http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/02/27/06
Jeff Jarvis interview re: his book “What Would Google Do?” Jarvis
works at City University of NY, School of Journalism. Sounds like the
book reflects your SDPS White Board Diagrams from last week !!!!. All
about service; service design. Lot’s of interesting case studies
shared.
David Harvey Lecture on 3/11 March 2, 2009
Posted by sl1814 in : Outside inspiration , add a commentAfter reading Harvey earlier in the semester, this lecture might illuminate the themes of property and publicness that we’ve been discussing:
Is Marxism Relevant Today?
Wednesday, March 11, 2009, 6:15pm
Davis Auditorium, the Schapiro Center
David Harvey,Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Prabhat Patnaik, one of India’s most distinguished economists and political commentators, and Duncan Foley, Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research, will discuss the question “Is Marxism Relevant Today?”
Co-sponsored by the Committee on Global Thought This event is free and open to the public.
No Tickets, no reservations required.
Seating is on a first come, first served basis.
(re)terrain @ vertexList February 28, 2009
Posted by dc1613 in : 3_Public space, Outside inspiration , add a commentMy friend runs this gallery in Williamsburg – they have a show related to public space opening on the 6th:
vertexList has the pleasure to present (re)terrain, a three-person exhibition by Daniel Bejar, Rebecca Loyche, and Laura Napier.A reception will take place on Friday, March 6th, 2009 from 7pm – 10pm, with the artists in attendance.The exhibition will be on display through Sunday, April 5th, 2009.
(re)terrain examines spaces and places of the heavily urbanized and conflicted world we live in. The exhibition looks at the social production of space as well as the malleable and volatile nature of public space. The works in the exhibition ask us to (re)consider the complex nature of the world we inhabit and the very ground we stand on.
http://vertexlist.blogspot.com/2009/02/reterrain-vertexlist-opening-friday.html
Call for proposals February 23, 2009
Posted by rda1 in : Outside inspiration , add a commentThe Design Trust for Public Space has published its 2009 Call for Proposals for projects that improve public space in NYC.