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.

Can you breakdance?

With 40,000 vacant lots, a crumbling public school system, a huge population of disaffected youth, an excellent Mayor and one of the most forward thinking water departments in the United States, Philadelphia is a city full of need AND opportunity. Throw in the City’s proximity to other places of similar needs such as Trenton, Camden, and Baltimore, as well as a host of highly motivated people doing great things in the City and there you have the basic reasons why Philadelphia is now the permanent home of Public Workshop. And you may or may not have heard but we want to make Philadelphia THE national model for how we engage young adults in the design and making of their cities. To do this, to meet the City’s tremendous needs and to truly have impact, Public Workshop needs a small army of breakdancing design-education-leaders. We couldn’t be more pleased to welcome our first class of Philadelphia-based Public Workshop Community Design Fellows, errr breakdancers. Say hello to Navjot Banwait, Emily Howe, Tyler Scholl and Stefanie Tomarchio. Their involvement will allow us to better grow our existing programming and launch some exciting new tools, and programs this spring. Simultaneously they will be part of the prototyping and launch of Basic Training, our Community Design Leader bootcamp–a crash course in social entrepreneurship, designer leadership, teaching, ‘doing’ and maybe even a little breakdancing to boot. Over the next couple of years, Basic Training  will allow us to have a significant positive impact in Philadelphia and then begin to extend our unique skills, tools and innovative approaches to other cities in a sustainable fashion.

Thus far we can report no diminishment of spring in users’ steps or a preponderance of sad, uninspired looking structures. Quite the contrary.

Interested in ordering some? Send us an email- info@beabuildinghero.com

Build-It! Mini-Discs

12″ diameter

1/4″ thick

20 Build-It! Mini-Discs for $35, shipping and tax not included

All Discs are laser cut from double walled cardboard with 50% recycled content, are 100% recyclable and are fabricated on-demand for Public Workshop in Charlottesville, VA by Cardboard Safari.

COPYRIGHT 2012

What better way to cap a long day of meetings to find a few of our Chicago #teendesignheroes–Jeisson, Audrey, Jovanna, Edwin, Joseph and Diana–standing proudly at the top of the Fast Company webpage? Needless to say there are few that are more deserving of this than these superstars and wow-o-wow we are smiling. Last summer, these #teendesignerheroes were a part of the ‘doing’ boot-camp that we have led for the past four years for the fantastic folks at the Chicago Architecture Foundation at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin. As the article states, from day one we accomplish great things by through learning by doing; building again and again; and failing magnificently. Pencils and rulers are prohibited, capture the flag, hide-n-go-seek and 18 hour days are required. As Jeisson so aptly puts it,

“Prepare yourself to build, tear down, build, tear down, and build again so that finally you can have what you may call your first draft. Sound tough? You’re telling me! Thankfully, while it is challenging, it’s also one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.”

The results? Well, in five short days, from scratch–including identifying the problem, user research and siting the resulting structure–the #teendesignheroes design and build structures like the one below.

More importantly, this unique process and experience has a profoundly transformative impact on the everyone involved–#teendesignheroes, teachers, visitors and our generous hosts at Taliesin. If you haven’t already done so, make sure you read some of the #teendesignheroes‘ posts in which they report and reflect upon the experience. We assure you they are quite moving and worth the read. In particular, have a look at Diana’s post. Unlike most of this year’s #teendesignheroes, she hadn’t taken any architecture classes in high school–and was initially very tentative as a result–but our unique design process helped her accomplish amazing things.

Click >>HERE<< to read more.

Incredible thanks to the outstanding Katie Koch of Project Interaction who was one of our Teaching Fellows this year and designed the graphic treatment for great image that you see at the top of the Fast Company article; Daniel Splaingard who is a Rose Fellow and was our other remarkable Teaching Fellow; Victor Sidy and everyone at Taliesin, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture; and the folks at the Chicago Architecture Foundation–Jen Masengarb, Jean Linsner and Krisann Rehbein–who do incredible work and make this experience possible every year.

Lastly, thanks to Melanie Kahl of Perkins + Will in Chicago for spending a day with us last summer and for writing the article. We don’t mind saying that you rock.

Public Workshop was asked by the great folks from CURA: Making Mega-Projects Work for Communities (a project of McGill University’s School of Urban Planning) to lead one of our chocolate cake master planning workshops (previous example) at the neighborhood’s subway station today to start generating conversation, awareness and questions around the impending project. CURA is working with Concertation Interquartier (CIQ), an inter-neighbourhood coalition of community groups working with the mega-hospital to better integrate the hospital into the surrounding neighborhood.

Why cake? Have a look at this interview, courtesy of OpenFile with Public Workshop’s Alex Gilliam to learn more:

Smartly stationed in between a number of bus stops and the Vendome Metro station, the construction of the neighborhood in chocolate cake grabbed the attention of harried commuters, hesitant passersby and hungry teenagers like few other things can. In fact, one of the big successes of the cake building workshop was the great cross-section of the population that we engaged on Friday morning. Young, old, powerful, homeless, families, individuals, local, and immigrant helping explore the design of the future of the neighborhood……..how often does that happen at your typical community planning meeting?

A few moments in the early morning commuter rush clearly stood out-

There was the Italian owner of a nearby coffee shop owner who stopped by to make sure his business could be easily seen on the model; the well-appointed hospital administrator in her blue suit with her hands covered in chocolate cake and icing, building away; the council member using the finished chocolate cake model to emphatically explain to reporters from the CBC the need for improved bike lane infrastructure in the neighborhood; chocolate-cake-emboldened urban planning students really connecting with passersby and participants ; the gaggles of teenagers getting off at the nearby bus stop and coming over for a closer look; and lets not forget the McGill University cheerleaders who created a special ‘Vendome would be great if…….’ cheer, on the spot.

And of course there were also the really thoughtful ideas for neighborhood future neighborhood improvements that we gathered through our ‘Vendome would be great if…..’. Although they by no means represent a detailed sampling of the neighborhood’s wishes, they do start to identify some strong trends that CURA and CIQ can use to initiate meaningful conversations between the community and the hospital about the future of the neighborhood.

Incredible thanks to Jason Prince, Molly Johnson, McGill Urban Planning students and others from CURA and CIQ for inviting Public Workshop to lead the event and doing a fantastic job of making the entire workshop a great success.

Curious what they had to say about the neighborhood and chocolate cake?

The event was well-attended by the news media. Have a look at the links below:

The initial Canadian Broadcasting Corporation story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2011/11/18/mtl-cake.html

A story by OpenFile with a very good 3 minute video: http://montreal.openfile.ca/blog/curator-blog/exclusive/2011/future-vendome-discussed-using-chocolate-cake

More from the CBC: http://news.sympatico.cbc.ca/local/qc/oversized_cake_gets_ndg_residents_talking_/7e2e1c1e

CBC TV: Some more video… http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Canada/Montreal/1305551527/ID=2169000880

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2011/11/18/mtl-cake.html

Want to see more pictures from the event?

Are you a Building Hero?

We are super excited to announce that our Build-It! Discs are now in production and available for purchase. We have a shiny website for the Discs designed by our friend Sage Brown too.

http://beabuildinghero.com/

All of our Build-It! Discs are made from recycled paper, are entirely recyclable and fabricated in the United States. We are also offering Build-It! Workshops and Curricula.

Phew and that’s just the half of it.

It should also be mentioned that our superstar friend and former intern Brenda, responsible for helping us create a number of ground-breaking projects including Shadelab, is no longer a #teendesignhero. Brenda turned 21 in September…..Happy Birthday Brenda, you rock!

Believe it or not, October is shaping up to be even busier but a heck of a lot of fun. Four major projects launch this month, we’re working on a new website for Public Workshop (thank goodness) and here are a few of our upcoming workshops and presentations. Please stop by and say hello!

October 2nd          BMW/Guggenheim Lab New York City, 1-4 pm

For more information click here

October 8th        Recharging Art + Public Design Austin, TX, 9-3 pm

For more information and to register click here

October 8th        Old Bakery Idea-Thon Austin, TX, 4-7 pm

For more information and to register click here

October 10/11th Design In Action Conference Philadelphia, PA

For more information and to register click here

October 15th      openhousenewyork Weekend at the Center For Architecture  New York City 12-4 pm

For more information click here

October 15th      BMW/Guggenheim Lab New York City, 8-10 pm

For more information click here

October 16th      openhousenewyork Weekend at DreamYard  New York City 1-3 pm

For more information click here

November 16th McGill University Montreal

In the coming weeks, in three different cities, we will be leading a variety of building workshops with our Build It! Disks. The focus of each workshop and the reason for using the Disks is varied:

In Austin, our workshops are focused on placemaking- using the Disks to help people explore how a variety of underutilized public spaces might be used differently, building collaboration amongst a disparate group of stakeholders and literally using the highly visible nature of the building of the structures to raise public awareness about the ongoing re-design of those spaces.

In Philadelphia the we will be using the Build It! Disks to introduce new methods for teaching students design and engaging visitors at architecture-related cultural institutions.

During the openhousenewyork Weekend, we will use the Disks to provide a means of gathering people young and old to ‘test’ a couple of different public spaces, while providing a mechanism for talking about the local architecture and community.

Regardless of their focus, each will be an exceptionally good time. All are open to the public but you must register for a couple of them to participate.

Come build with us!

7th October Austin, Texas

OFF THE GRID: Recharging Public Art + Design

Old Bakery Idea-Thon

9th October Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Design In Action Conference

15th October New York, NY

Open House New York Weekend at the Center For Architecture, time TBD

16th October

Open House New York Weekend at DreamYard, 1-3pm

Why such an immediate reaction?

Paul and RJ are certainly great, thoughtful guys but there is nothing in their backgrounds that would make them uniquely disposed to wanting to inspire others in Philadelphia to re-design and improve their neighborhoods. Other #teendesignheroes such as Diana have talked at length about the incredible sense of empowerment that our unique design-building methodology–which doesn’t require specific architectural knowledge to make something wonderful–imparts on them. I think that the methods definitely had a big impact on Paul and RJ’s outlook but there is one other unaccounted for factor– feedback. Working on a relatively heavily trafficked corner in North Philadelphia meant that we were getting immediate feedback from passersby and community members. Paul and RJ didn’t have to wait to hear about the impact of their actions, they got to see and hear people’s reactions to their work in real time. Indeed, in this rough, post-event video they recount their amazement at the responses from passersby, especially the father who stopped and let his little girl build.

What if we create a corps of Philadelphia #teendesignheroes who design and build improvements in the public spaces, vacant lots and schools in their neighborhoods throughout the City?

Why shouldn’t we create a corps of #teendesignheroes who not only take the lead on designing and building the bus stops, benches, shade structures, playground equipment, and planters that Philadelphia so desperately needs, but in the process, inspire a much larger city-wide movement of neighborhood self-improvement?

Last week I spoke in San Francisco at SOCAP (an international conference on social entrepreneurship) on the importance of prototyping new behaviors that enable people to solve our cities’ most pressing challenges. When we think of disruptive technologies we overlook youth, most immediately imagining such things as iPhones or the combustible engine. However, youth are incredibly powerful as a disruptive technology, modeling behaviors and approaches that either adults have forgotten or didn’t think was possible, and I have seen this time and time again in my work.

The students at the Sunshine School decided to improve the condition of their school when nobody else would, breaking through their teachers’ immobility and frustration with the school district. My 19 year old superstar former intern Brenda, helped model how youth and community could be uniquely incorporated into a Chicago architecture firm’s design practice to help it create better buildings and better neighborhoods- creating an unprecedented business model. And of course there is the 24 year old at the National Building Museum who decided to build something even more impressive out of Legos because she saw a five year old make something wonderful.

If all of this is true, give me one good reason why shouldn’t we put Philadelphia youth at the forefront of designing, building and improving Philadelphia?

And I haven’t even begun to describe the incredibly positive impact this can have on #teendesignheroes academic achievement, sense of empowerment and self-worth……..

Incredible thanks to the Slought Foundation, The Village For Arts and Humanities and the Dennis Oppenheim Studio for making these workshops possible.

Photo Credit: www.galleyboys.com , from the documentary, ‘Deathbowl To Downtown’, on the history of skating in New York City.

Incredible kudos and thanks to AIA Austin, the Downtown Austin Alliance, Art In Public Places and the City of Austin for supporting this project which will redefine the way the ‘temporary’, community and local cultural assets are intentionally interwoven into urban design processes to create better cities.

Last year we designed and developed this unique program model for Landon Bone Baker, a small Chicago firm, well-regarded for its affordable housing work in under-served neighborhoods. Our group of young interns were hired not because the firm wanted to create a youth program, but because the 16-26 year olds could actually do things the firm couldn’t–acting as cultural translators, building high-tech environmental sensors and gathering data about a place the young adults know better than anyone else: their neighborhood. Shadelab is notable because of the way it redefines how and where learning occurs; the roles young adults play in positively changing the places they live; the manner in which a design firm incorporates youth and community into its creative process; and how we address complex issues in our most needy places.

We couldn’t be more excited to say that Landon Bone Baker decided earlier this year to grow this program and make it a truly integral part of the way the firm works. Working in partnership with Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation and the Chicago Public School System, this summer they launched Airlab. Co-led by Public Workshop‘s superstar former intern Brenda, a staff member at Landon Bone Baker, and Daniel Splaingard (a Rose Fellow at Bickerdike and CAF/Public Workshop Teaching Fellow), the program seeks to evaluate the current air quality and the impact on its residents in a number of Bickerdike Buildings designed by Landon Bone Baker.

Folks, we had no direct role in Airlab and yet we are absolutely over-the-moon. Shadelab/Airlab is well on its way to becoming an integrated, sustainable part of how the firm and its community partners works, and there is simply no precedent for this model anywhere. Furthermore, Brenda continues to grow and shine as a leader, and people like Daniel Splaingard are growing into the talented design-educator-leaders that are necessary for this programming to expand, and accomplish great things. And let’s not forget, that Landon Bone Baker, Bickerdike and the Chicago Public School (CPS) system are supporting and embracing this incredibly adventuresome program in the midst of terrible budget cuts. Amazing.

With the final day of the Airlab summer workshop wrapping up last Friday, we think congratulations are in order for Landon Bone Baker, Bickerdike, CPS, Daniel and Brenda.

Please stop by the Airlab blog to have a look at their work: www.airlab.landonbonebaker.com

Here’s more information on:

Shadelab

The incredible response to the Shadelab and Brenda’s presentation at a national conference on community design.

A national award we won for the project.

Come Build And Explore Possibility With Us!

Interested in helping build and explore possibility with us? Great. Here are four ways you can participate:

1. Help with construction site set-up and pre-build pieces of Dennis Oppenheim’s Device To Root Out Evil.
-Meet at 12.30 pm on August 13th at the Village. This will be the first time it’s ever been made out of wood and it’s going to be a great challenge- bring your tools.
-Please send me an RSVP and let me know what tools you’re bringing- alex@publicworkshop.us

2. Help design-build a really cool structure with our team- 12.30-6.30 each day. NOTE Time Change!
-Please send me an RSVP and let me know what tools you’re bringing- alex@publicworkshop.us

3. Cook something tasty and come to our final presentation and potluck on Thursday (August 11th from 4.30-6.30).
-Feel free to come early and explore possibility with us!
-Please RSVP for this event with Josie Bockelman- jbockelman@sloughtfoundation.org

4. Invite a friend and bring scrap building materials.
-We’ve got our materials covered BUT more wood allows us to explore even greater possibilities. Send me an email if you can contribute- alex@publicworkshop.us

The Address?

The Village of Arts and Humanities
2544 Germantown Avenue
Philadelphia, PA
19133

The things is, to fully understand a space or structure you need more than a simple tour. You need some excitement. Last Sunday that is exactly what we had during a game of capture the flag that Alex has us play to better understand our site. And yes, there was some friendly competition with the teams. On the surface it does sound like a useless game, but on the contrary it brought out camaraderie and planning. In the long run, these are two big aspects of the work life. If we can’t interact and express our ideas with each other then there will be no inspiring design or mesmerizing building.

Through the game we learned a lot learned about the topography of the Hillside Studio. The adrenaline helped focus our awareness and perception of our surroundings of the land. We were able to get a better sense of the land and how it’s been perceived. With the game, we gained a more in-depth knowledge about how the students and staff behave on the site. For example which parts are secluded and which are open for visitors? I also learned how to hide myself from the enemy and to move from point A to B through pathways I wasn’t aware of. It made me realize how little we knew about the terrain even though we’ve walking and exploring for a few days before the game. For me it’s important to fully interact and experience the site as much possible. I know in some cases it’s not doable, but if you can go a play hide-and-seek or tag or anything the benefits outweigh the silliness. And it is also nice to take a break and for a moment enjoy life in the same time as learning.

~Joseph, one of the #teendesignheroes

I start my day here at Taliesin by thinking about something that I want to accomplish, as well as thinking about what I did yesterday or just a way that I wish to improve myself. But every morning I think about the two goals that I have for myself, the first being to start thinking of ways to change the culture in my school of how architecture students view the program. I think that this is important because there are people both in the class and like me who want that opportunity to explore building and sketching, and to learn what type of things you can do in the very broad field of architecture. Secondly I just wanted to put myself to a test to see if I could really build, and most importantly I wanted to find out how passionate I was about it. But it turns out I can do it because I have already learned to be more confident about my ideas by taking ownership. And I’ve learned how important it is to keep building and making things.

Letting go of something you have worked so hard for hours under the hot sun and destroying it in seconds, in the end you do it for the same reason that you don’t go for the first thing you see when you buy something like a dress or car. You need to experiment, figure out what works and what doesn’t, in this case we have to build a cellphone booth type of shelter, which requires us to take numerous needs into consideration. When building you need to always stop and pause to look at what you have created and observe if it is working. It’s better to catch your mistakes early on and prevent hours of unnecessary work.

For today’s challenge we had to play a game of capture the flag and later make a map of Taliesin from the print out map that we were given. I was amazed to discover that a map doesn’t tell you the full truth of how an area really looks like. After the game we got the opportunity come into two groups and come up with how the area of the school really looks like after exploring it over the past couple days and getting to know it in a very intimate way. A physical map of an area from a printed sheet of paper or like Google earth is nothing compared to what the place is really like. I think it may be safe to infer that it’s practically meaningless if you want to look at a map like this to find a good place that has a nice view and good grass to have a picnic or something. You will not get that from a boring flat surface. There is more in that map that you cannot see and you are missing the beauty and physical characteristics that make that place unique and special. It’s truly not something that can be captured in a photo from the sky; you’d be missing the entire picture. The area of a place has a life, mood or attitude; it is something physical that cannot be expressed in a flat surface of a picture. Having to make our own map of the school was a good way of getting to know the area in which we are going to build something. I came to realize that understanding our building space is something that is extremely important and helps us understand what makes the place unique.

I will always remember that there is more to a map than just a flat surface.

Story by Diana Rodriguez