Mobilize Design
The burgeoning green-economy largely disregards poor and marginalized communities. For the sustainable design professions and locally organized communities, this is a new and grand opportunity for leadership and collaboration.
The Mobilize Design Initiative acts on this opportunity by:
- Accessing existing local networks of socially minded, sustainable designers and design students in 5 cities across the country;
- Utilizing proven collaborative design methods to engage a local community (2 months at each host elementary or middle school) in the conceptual design of a passive solar greenhouse and bio-intensive garden;
- Providing free sustainability classes and workshops at host schools for both students and community members;
- Freely distributing (via a community-driven website and at events across the country) all of the educational/strategic planning materials needed to organize a collaborative community project;
- Documenting the entire national tour and each local incidence on the project website by giving each community the opportunity to share their struggles and successes.
The MD national tour vehicle will be the Think Tank: A mobile collaborative design studio, unfolding adaptable venue, and interactive example of sustainable design. It will stop at 5 cities for 2 months each to facilitate a collaborative design process and provide sustainability education to students and community members. The Think Tank will require community input along the route in order to minimize the tour's carbon footprint. For example, the MD crew will collect vegetable oil for fuel, dispose of greywater at existing community gardens, and allow event participants to refill the onboard batteries with built-in kinetic to electric bicycle stands.
MD will catalyze sustainable design solutions in underserved communities across the country with this innovative combination of grassroots organizing, accessing existing networks, and open-source community-driven online technology.
