Workshops

Sunday, April 6, 2008
Gund Hall Lobby, 48 Quincy St, Gund Hall

8:00-9:00am--Coffee + Snacks
9:30am--Introduction to workshops

9:50-10:50am--Session I workshops
11:00-12:00pm--Session II workshops
or
9:50-12:00pm--Local Tour

12:00pm--Brunch Provided
Cambridge Queens Head, Click here for map
Memorial Hall, across Quincy St from GSD.

Workshops Options (all workshops will be held during both sessions):

Bryan Bell: DesignCorps
Jim Stockard: Loeb Fellowship
Katie Swenson: Rose Fellowship

Fellowship Opportunities

DESIGN CORPS FELLOWSHIPS

Each year, Design Corps seeks motivated, creative, self-starters who are independent problem solvers to serve communities as Design Corps Fellows. These positions are an opportunity to apply what you have learned in school for a good cause and to explore the larger role that designers can play in identifying and solving community needs. Design Corps Fellowships deploy design talent, energy, and education in communities who would otherwise not have access to a designer. They each address a critical social, economic, or environmental need with a design solution that would not be realized otherwise. Anyone with an undergraduate or graduate degree in any design field is welcome to apply. All positions are a one-year commitment. IDP requirements are met. Deadline for application is June 8, 2008.

http://www.designcorps.org/Opportunities/Fellowship_Program.htm

LOEB FELLOWSHIPS

The Loeb Fellowship was established in 1970 through the generosity of the late John L. Loeb, Harvard College '24. Based at the Graduate School of Design, the program offers ten annual postprofessional awards for independent study at Harvard. Through the Fellowship, participants have access to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School of Design, the Graduate School of Education, Harvard Business School, Harvard College, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard Law School, the Kennedy School of Government, and M.I.T.

The Fellowship is a unique opportunity to nurture the leadership potential of the most promising men and women in design and other professions related to the built and natural environment. It enhances the excellence of the GSD by exposing students to some of the most exciting midcareer professionals in their fields. John Loeb realized this potential when he endowed the Loeb Fellowship to fill a special place in American education: one that would greatly increase the practical effectiveness of the design professions. Now entering its fourth decade, with over 300 alumni, the Fellowship has made substantial progress toward that goal.

http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/professional/loeb_fellowship/index.html

ROSE FELLOWSHIPS

The Frederick P. Rose Architectural Fellowship was established in 1999 by Enterprise Community Partners, a national non-profit housing and community development organization. The Fellowship creates partnerships between emerging architects and community-based organizations to direct the skills and passions of the architects in the service of low and moderate-income communities. The Fellowship is designed to promote the value of quality design and green building in affordable housing and encourages architects to become lifelong leaders in public service and community development. The Fellowship honors the late Frederick P. Rose, the prominent developer and philanthropist, who believed strongly in the value of good design and the spirit of public service.

The Rose Fellowship fosters a unique partnership between Fellows and their host organizations. Both parties make a commitment of three years. The Fellow contributes his or her time and energy to work as part of the host organization's staff, building capacity and bringing fresh experience and ideas to the organization. The host provides mentorship and guidance, supporting the development of the Fellow's career by providing meaningful experiences in design, development, financing, construction management and resident services.

Applications are now available for four 2008 Rose Fellowship opportunities in diverse communities from San Francisco to East Biloxi, Mississippi, and Downtown Minneapolis to rural Minnesota. Applications are due on April 25, 2008.

www.rosefellowship.org

Brandy Brooks: Community Design Resource Center of Boston
Sarah Howard-McHugh, Boston Architectural College/Tufts University Solar Decathlon Team

Designing for Inclusion

We frequently think and talk about our "design process"--but how often do we think about designing our processes for collaboration and stakeholder participation? Inclusion of all the necessary voices in the design process will not happen automatically; it must be intentional and deliberate. The collaborative aspects of design are arguably the most difficult parts of the process, and therefore require the most time, attention and thoughtfulness.

This workshop will introduce participants to the process of designing for inclusion, starting with a discussion of the various factors in planning community participation activities. Following this introduction, the Community Design Resource Center of Boston and the Boston Architectural College/Tufts University Solar Decathlon Team will present two community participation projects currently in development and describe their desired community engagement outcomes. Using these as case studies for a group exercise, session attendees will work together to brainstorm and present strategies that meet the projects' participation goals. At the end of the session, attendees will learn about opportunities to continue their engagement in these projects beyond the workshop.

Pam Dorr: Hale Empowerment and Revitalization Organization (HERO) Housing Resource Center

Gina Reichert: Design 99

Housing: Rethinking the Neighborhood Structure

This workshop will focus on reconsidering the abandoned houses in our neighborhood; once privately owned, many of these properties have fallen into foreclosure and are now bank-owned. We are looking at these houses as an opportunity to rethink neighborhood structures--regarding geography, economics, and cohesion. Negotiating where property lines begin and end, and the whole topic of real estate, land value, and individual property ownership versus community input, voice, and well-being are in the forefront of our minds these days. We will present an analysis of our neighborhoods, the current situation, and have a brainstorm session in response.

Doug Harmon, Lora Kim, and Kathleen McCabe: CITYbuild

Intelligent Supply: Models for Collaborative Practice and Direct Action

Based in post-Katrina New Orleans, the CITYbuild Consortium of Schools is a multi-disciplinary collective that works to facilitate long-term, productive collaboration among national university-based Architecture, Landscape, Planning and Development programs. The CITYbuild Consortium partners with local community based organizations, community leaders and local agencies to develop a model of direct action that utilizes the talent and expertise of university-level participants for progressive solutions in the planning and building process. We believe that the knowledge gained through CITYbuild initiatives is transferable to other geographic centers facing various forms of crisis – including disaster, poverty, neglect, and decay of structures, infrastructures and social systems.

The workshop will present several models for university participation in community-based design. Examples will demonstrate effective strategies for responsive design education addressing a variety of scales and recovery issues. Case studies will include: The People's Environmental Center by Wentworth Institute of Technology; and Redesigning the Neutral Ground by the Boston Architectural College.

Jennifer Lawrence: Groundwork Somerville

Getting Outside: Funding Design Projects

Groundwork Somerville (GWS) is a local non-profit that aims to empower community residents, businesses, organizations and city government to create a more sustainable community. This session will focus on funding for community design projects, looking specifically at local schoolyard garden projects. GWS will show the history of a series of design projects, discuss the funding for each, and then open up for a lively discussion on the funding of your future design projects.

Chris Muskopf: Archventures
Raquel Resendiz: YouthBuild Boston's Designery

Engaging Community in Delivering Thoughtful Design

Archventures and YouthBuild Boston's – Designery are both relatively young community design organizations yet have found opportunities to collaborate and engage a unique constituency in the urban areas of Boston. Archventures, now in its third year, provides studies and seeks to improve building usability in unlikely places. Its constituency is largely local non-profits and services provided are the efforts of a continually-rotating group of fellows. The Designery, its own distinct program within YouthBuild Boston, seeks to expand the educational opportunities available to youths through in-depth, real-world, team based study of architecture, construction management, and landscape design.

The workshop will provide an overview of each program's operational model and will compare the varied means and common goals of each non-profit, an emphasis on the community involvement, resulting from each organization's model. As a brief case study, we'll present projects shared between Archventures and the Designery. Given two different approaches, the workshop will situate and solicit critique of how each organization works within the context of Boston's community design scene, including interactions with other like-minded individuals, organizations, and institutions. Collectively, we'll seek to understand the systems in place already and those that can be constructed to further the delivery of thoughtful design and meaningful service in Boston.

Carin Smuts: CS Studio Architects

Interactive Practice: Sustainable Dwelling Design

As part of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, each year's winner must design a sustainable house/dwelling. We would like to see the rich and interesting discussion that develops while leading participants through the process of designing such a project using participatory methods typical of our practice. These include developing a vision for 10 years in the future, working on aims and objective to draft a plan of action, and finally creating a drawing or collage that will represent the entire process--with emphasis on the fact that it can be understood should it be presented to another party.

Tour Option:

RISD InsideOut Studio:
Nadine Gerdts, RISD Dept of Landscape Architecture, Senior Lecturer and Critic
Mike Hahn, RISD Dept of Industrial Design BFA '08
Cortney Kirk, Payette Associates, RISD MLA '07
Roger Wei, RISD Dept of Furniture Design MFA '07
with the Boston Schoolyard Initiative

Toolboxes for Learning: K-8 Sustainable Schoolyard Learning

In collaboration with Boston Schoolyard Initiative and the Rafael Hernandez School, a two-way bilingual K-8 Boston Public School in the Egelston Square neighborhood of Roxbury, a multidisciplinary team of designers from the Rhode Island School of Design ( RISD ) set out to design, build, and install an outdoor classroom prototype structure to house materials for gardening and experiments for the Hernandez School Outdoor Classroom developed by RISD's InsideOut Studio. Toolboxes for Learning, is a storage unit, composed of various rolling "toolboxes," that allows teachers to leave the traditional, text based classroom and use experiential learning methodologies that encouraged students to dig, plant, observe and conduct experiments in the schoolyard. Each "toolbox" not only stores teaching supplies used for various science and weather experiments, but also becomes a lesson about sustainability through the material pallet. Recycled, reused, and sustainable materials were used to construct the various sized "toolboxes" parked under two child-sized roof gardens. On this site tour participants will take an up-close look at the prototype and understand the connections it makes between children, design, and their environment.

Toolboxes for Learning has received a 2007 ASLA Student Collaboration Honor Award as well as a citation from the City of Boston, Boston Public Schools, Boston School Committee.

Looking toward SFI9: Grants for Student-Initiated Social/Economic/Environmental Design

Four grants of $2,500 each will be awarded to support the research and design for specific projects undertaken by students to help seed the success of projects by the use of the SEED metric as a tool and through small financial support of the work. These SEED grants are intended to be the first demonstration of these Social/Economic/Environmental Design principles as a basis for successful project formulation and realization. As an evaluation method they can be used as a project tool to be used by designers and the general public to create positive change in the built environment. The SEED grant is intended to help clarify the goals and process towards success. The completed grant should provide a comprehensive picture of a project, showing how and why it will work. Applications will be due in January 2009 and winners will be announced at SFI9 in Dallas Texas in April 2009. information will be posted at

SFI8 PAGE LINKS

Workshops