LAURA FORLANO
technology + culture + citiesArchive for social innovation
Amplify: Creative and Sustainable Lifestyles on the Lower East Side
08/19/2010 at 4:52 PM · Filed under social innovation, sustainability
Amplify: Creative and Sustainable Lifestyles on the Lower East Side
Are we growing more than plants? This question — blown up in large pink letters on a white wall in a small gallery on the Lower East Side — frames the core of the Amplify exhibition. Like the Lower East Side, the exhibition, which is the product of over one year of planning, research and design, is undergoing a process of evolution and reinvention. The larger initiative, Amplifying Creative Communities, pioneered by the Design for Sustainability and Social Innovation (DESIS) Lab at Parsons The New School for Design, represents the first stage of a multi-year project made possible, in part, by the Cultural Innovation Fund of the Rockefeller Foundation.
As one of the installation’s curators, Lara Penin, an Assistant Professor in the Design and Management department at Parsons, describes it, “The exhibition is a research process, a process of interaction in which the content can change before, during and after the exhibit.” So, like the plants on display at the exhibition that need to be watered in order to survive the August heat, the exhibition is designed to grow. The gallery offers a number of points of interaction where participants can contribute ideas, offer suggestions and “vote” on their favorite examples of sustainability and social innovation from around the world.
Design and Politics on the Lower East Side
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.
