Week 7: Design and Participation

OKAY!

We are going to DIVE IN to Project #2. We’ve been doing a lot of preparatory thinking, research, and getting ourselves in the right mindset to think about what urban issues are present in Portland. This week it’s time to buckle down and get to work on Project #2.

Here’s what our week will look like.

Tuesday

Your reflections on the GOOD Ideas for Cities event are due. Please be ready to discuss. Read more about that assignment in the previous homework post on this blog.

We will work in groups to brainstorm on ideas for our challenges. Use this time wisely. By the end of class on Tuesday, you and your teammates will have to have your challenges narrowed down to three options. Past challenges have been phrased as statements followed by questions. Look at the Good Ideas for Cities website and think back to Alissa’s presentation last week for the right kind of language for these challenges.

* * * By the end of class on Tuesday, please have one of your group members post your top three urban challenges to the Tumblr. Format your post like this: Group members: Name, Name, Name. Challenge #1: xxxxx. xxxxx? Challenge #2: xxxxxx. xxxxxx? Challenge #3: xxxx. xxxxxxx

Wednesday

Between class this week, maintain contact with your group members to narrow down your challenges. I will email your groups about the challenges you posted to Tumblr. Please use my feedback to make your final choice.

* * * By end of class on Thursday, you will need to choose your challenge. I will need to approve this challenge before you move forward. 

Thursday

We will have guest speakers come to class to talk about the importance of participation in design. These guests are MFA candidates in the Art and Social Practice program here at PSU, and they all use participatory techniques to engage and collaborate with audiences. Their work will give us some ideas for how our solutions for Project #2 can maybe engage the people of Portland in interesting ways. 

I will be posting links to our guests’ work, as well as other links that deal with participation. Please keep a close eye on this blog and read through the things I’m posting. Think about participation. How can your projects engage the people of Portland?

After our guest lecture, we will discuss our challenges and hear from all of the groups. 

Let’s do this! Email me with any questions.