technology + culture + cities
Archive for design collaboration
06/05/2010 at 11:47 AM · Filed under design collaboration, performance, service design
Service Design Futures
What does theater have to do with service design? This question was addressed in a presentation, “Dramaturgy of Services,” by Roman Aebersold, a designer from Lucerne School of Art and Design in Switzerland, who has been a visitor at the Parsons this spring. The presentation was part of a workshop, “Service Design Performances,” which was organized by the DESIS Lab in late May in order to convene New York’s design community and cultivate a discussion around designing for services. As design tools and methods have become increasingly useful for problem-solving in a wide range of areas, designers are playing an important role in creating not only logos and websites but also interactions, organizations and systems.
At Parsons, the intersecting role of design for services, sustainability and social innovation mark the core of courses, external partnerships and labs, which consider the role of services at the individual, household and city level, explained Lara Penin, co-founder of the DESIS Lab. We interact with many kinds of services everyday including government and commercial services though a series of “touchpoints” in face-to-face settings as well as by phone and through websites. We are also sometimes providers of services for one another however, we sometimes fail to recognize our own roles as service providers.
04/30/2010 at 8:27 PM · Filed under design collaboration, social innovation, sustainability
Design and Politics on the Lower East Side
Is design depoliticizing? Can design politicize? Will it enable the emergence of a new kind of politics?
These are some of the many questions—both theoretical and practical–raised during the first workshop of the Amplifying Creative Communities (Amplify) project, which was held in early February by the Parsons Design for Sustainability and Social Innovation (DESIS) Lab in order to kickoff the Rockefeller-funded, multi-year project. The project seeks to “amplify by design” the many creative and socially innovative activities that New Yorkers are engaged in through a close study of specific neighborhoods. The workshop convened a small group of Parsons and The New School faculty, designers from Milan Polytechnic, technologists from MIT, and students as well as participants from the design consultancy IDEO and community partners such as Green Map and the Lower East Side Ecology Center .
The purpose of the workshop was to share knowledge about the history and context of the Lower East Side as well as to brainstorm about the Amplify project’s processes, toolkits and activities. The Lower East Side is the initial site for this project due to its high population density, diverse ethnic communities, history of resistance to gentrification and strong political capital. For example, the Lower East Side Ecology Center described the neighborhood’s transformation from the 1980’s – when it was reminiscent of a burnt out city in post-war Germany – to the present time in which there are over 50 thriving community gardens that connect local residents and increase their cohesiveness.
