Everyone should have the opportunity to experience the places, spaces, architecture and infrastructure that make a city great. Only by exploring and physically experiencing a building or place can one really understand the impact of, and thereby participate in the making of the design decisions that affect our City and neighborhoods.
With 225,000 visitors and 700 plus returning volunteers from all walks of life; unique access to 300 plus public spaces, pieces of hidden infrastructure, architecture and design programs in all five boroughs of New York City; and partnerships with over 125 cultural organizations, openhousenewyork is uniquely positioned to facilitate everyone from your mailman to the Mayor simultaneously experiencing and talking about the role design plays in making New York City great. It is simply amazing that they accomplish this on one weekend each year with no more than a staff of three. openhousenewyork‘s lifeblood–the diverse collection people, places, buildings and organizations–is also its weakness. To help openhousenewyork better leverage these strengths, giving identity to the incredible volunteers, organizations and buildings that make it such a wonderful asset in New York, Public Workshop developed I AM OHNY!.
Deployed in stages as part of openhousenewyork‘s 10th anniversary celebration, the first phase of I AM OHNY!, simply begins to bring to light the incredible diversity of people, places and stories behind the organization.
Want to read a few? Click >>HERE<<.
Thanks to Giacomo Ciminello who helped develop the initial I AM OHNY! proposal which took the form of a Sappi Ideas That Matter grant.
Posted on February 22nd, 2012 at 5:48 pm by publicworkshop in Our Work