See the text from VisionArc’s ‘On Visualization and Social Impact’ below:

When doing things in the world that involve communities of people, social impact is inevitable. However, the nature of that impact is ultimately a matter of design—it can create a positive difference, or a negative one.

Since 2009 I’ve had the opportunity to direct the efforts of VisionArc, a New York-based design think tank that works on social and spatial challenges. Central to these efforts, the visualization of complex systems and the design of collaborative frameworks are critical for developing actionable opportunities for systemic change. Visualization is often used to make the facts of the world visible, but at VisionArc visualization is used as a way of making new interactions, discussions and actions possible. We think of this as creating micro-fluencies—or the ability to speak a little bit in a lot of different languages—and find it to be an essential aspect of leadership in projects attempting to create positive social impact. Visualization is one of the ways that we empower others to develop micro-fluencies, and by doing so to gain new tools to grapple with the systemic challenges affecting our communities, economies and the environment. Two efforts illustrate how visualization and local participation can be used to align city investment priorities with local needs or even reconstitute a relationship between a city institution and its immediate neighbors.

Envisioning Resources
In 2013, VisionArc initiated a partnership with NYC Parks to explore ways for connecting local residents to new resources at a Bronx neighborhood where programming and staffing had been impaired by budget cuts. Filling this void, local residents had begun to self-organize, donating their own resources and time, offering free public programs that included wellness, childcare, recreation and educational opportunities. For many local families and young people, this was a lifeline in a community where many of these types of resources are in chronic short supply. For VisionArc this was an opportunity to ask: how might visualization, communication and active engagement with the community fill in the gap between local needs and civic priorities?

Working with municipal stakeholders, local residents and civic groups, we developed a visioning process using a playfully analog wall graphic that transformed the community center into a crowd-sourcing platform to match community needs with existing capacity. At the local scale, residents visualized the inventory of skills, services and other resources already available in their communities. At the municipal scale, the process generated the first in a series of briefs designed to help the city evaluate a new breed of program investments tailored to the hyper-local dynamics of a particular neighborhood.

Working with local stakeholders, the visualization process redefined the community center from a place to receive public services into a leadership platform for empowering communities to envision them on their own. For example, some children imagined a park community center that could provide opportunities beyond recreation, such as learning new technology or language skills. For some parents this meant imagining ways to assist in the day-to-day challenges of parenting through a program such as a young father’s support group. While changes in elected leadership ultimately limited the reach of this initiative, the process illustrated the role that visual tools can play in fostering social capital and networked communities. With a few hundred dollars of material costs and a small amount of time, visualizing local needs and resources creates not only dialogue but also an artifact of public record. Visualization extends the reach of collective voice. It builds a coherent language in place of the complex threads of social life, enabling portability beyond the community where it will inevitably need to be represented as resources are fought for.

A Shared Platform
In a 2015 collaboration with the local advocacy project “96 Acres,” VisionArc developed a participatory event at a Chicago county jail that examined the impact of incarceration on a local community. Located on Chicago’s west side, the Cook County Jail is the largest of its kind in the United States, occupying 96 acres of land within the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Little Village. The jail houses around 9,000 men and women on any given day, 50% of whom hail from adjacent neighborhoods. For many local residents the jail is omnipresent, symbolizing the prioritization of incarceration policies over investment into programs aimed at improving life and creating opportunities. Moreover, for residents who open their front doors to the sight of the vast complex every day, the jail is an enduring reminder of the disproportionate impact that incarceration has on people of color in our cities and across the country.

PARK was a large-scale data visualization, public art and radio broadcast event designed to occupy one-half mile of residential street parking adjacent to the jail. Individual automobiles were crowd-sourced from local residents, prison staff and other volunteers and parked alongside the wall and barbed perimeter fencing in colored groupings of black, brown and white. Together the cars visualized the racial statistics of the current inmate population proportionate to the communities inside its walls: 67% black, 21% Latino and 12% white.

Collaborating with Chicago Public Media the event featured a live broadcast of B.B. King’s 1970 performance “Live in Cook County Jail,” which played through the radios of the parked cars. Visitors to the event were invited to record personal memories and stories related to the history of the jail and Chicago’s west side communities. The voices of local residents, community stakeholders and elected officials merged with the sounds of King’s historic performance, permeating the neighborhood and echoing along the jail perimeter. Here, visualization, in the form of the “bar graph” created by parked automobiles, and an audio broadcast connected the shared experience of past and present, inside and outside, creating future links between local and civic communities who have historically been without a common ground. This included intimate interactions among local community and block organizers, County and Sheriff’s office officials, and the Executive Director of the jail. Together these exchanges initiated new ways to confront the vast physical and conceptual space of incarceration in this part of the city and beyond.

On Chicago’s west side and in the Bronx, exploring complex social, economic and political dynamics through participation and visualization strengthened connections between local and civic stakeholders. In these cases, visualization was used to move beyond the representation of static facts, instead becoming common ground for dialogue and debate. Cast into urban space these experiments in visualization created opportunities to build new fluencies that could empower communities in assuming important leadership roles. Here, positive impact by design is not defined as a received condition but one that is built through shared processes, perspectives and voice—the “matter of design”—without which positive social impact is only a remote possibility.

Excerpted from LEAP Dialogues: Career Pathways in Design for Social Innovation, 2016

Lead Editor Mariana Amatullo
Editors Bryan Boyer
Liz Danzico
Andrew Shea

Funder & Content Partner Autodesk Foundation

Funder VentureWell

Book Designer TwoPoints.net
Lupi Asensio and Martin Lorenz

Managing Editor Jennifer May

Publisher Designmatters at ArtCenter College of Design

Printer AGPOGRAF Impressors Barcelona, Spain

Distributor DAP/Distributed Arts Publishers

PARK was a large-scale data visualization, public art, and radio broadcast event produced as a collaboration between VisionArc Director, Landon Brown and Chicago-based art and community activist project 96 Acres. It was presented on August 15th, 2015 at the Cook County Jail in Chicago, Illinois.

Located on Chicago’s west side, The Cook County Jail is the largest county jail in the United States, occupying 96 acres of land within the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Little Village. The jail houses 9,000 men and women, 50% of which hail from the immediately surrounding area. For many local residents the omnipresence of the jail symbolizes the over-prioritization of incarceration policies as opposed to more impactful investment into local programs and resources. Moreover, for residents who open their front doors to the sight of the vast complex every day an enduring reminder of the disproportionate impact that incarceration has on people of color in our cities and across the country.

PARK was designed to occupy one-half mile of residential street parking. Individual automobiles were crowd-sourced from local residents, prison staff, and other volunteers and parked alongside the jail in colored groupings of black, brown, and white. Together they visualized the racial statistics of the current inmate population. The event featured a live Chicago Public Media (Vocalo 90.7) broadcast of B.B. King’s 1970 performance, Live in Cook County Jail, through the AM/FM stereos of the parked cars. Visitors to the event were invited to record personal memories and stories related to the history of the jail and Chicago’s West side communities. The voices of local residents, community stakeholders, and elected officials merged with the sounds of King’s historic performance, permeating throughout the neighborhood and jail site. Here visualization and broadcast worked to build links between the shared experience of past and present, inside and outside, while creating future links between communities who have historically been without a common ground: an intimate exchange between local and civic stakeholders confronting the vast space of incarceration affecting our communities.

For more information on the project see park-96acres.com

Credits: The PARK documentary was produced in collaboration with 96 Acres and Scrappers Film Group. Featured project image by Sandra Lopez.

Please visit Librariness.com for the full project proposal

Throughout the last century New York City’s public libraries have functioned as a hinge point for open access to information and the front door to some of the city’s most critical civic services. Yet as the 21st century continues to become the bottleneck for the entangled challenges of urbanization, climate change, and economic fault lines, this familiar institution has never been more relevant. For some the library is a repository: a place to seek knowledge and information through print and digital media. For many though, the branch library system is a living part of the city’s social infrastructure. Walk through the front door of any one of our city’s 207 neighborhood branches and you’ll likely be greeted by wildly diverse set of program offerings- from job services and technical training, to wellness,cultural exchange, and even disaster resiliency. More likely than not, your neighborhood branch is quietly working to ensure social and economic cohesion within the many communities that call New York City home. Small boxes. Big responsibilities.

In the summer of 2014 The Center for an Urban Future, in collaboration with the Architectural League NY, launched a study called Re-envisioning Branch Libraries a design study with the ambition to articulate “new architectural, financial, and programmatic possibilities for New York City’s branch libraries.” Five interdisciplinary teams were chosen to develop unique speculations as to what these possibilities might be for New York City’s branch libraries in the 21st century.

VisionArc embarked on an intensive collaboration with a bespoke and interdisciplinary team, called UNION, that was convened specifically for this design study. UNION approached the challenge with a diverse set of expertise in architecture, library science, technology, graphic design, writing, and film making. With an interest in narrative and in identifying the essential conditions that link communities to library services- or as we called it: ‘librariness- our team undertook the challenge of making branch libraries more visible as civic institutions within their communities and the city.

UNION’s approach was designed as a fictional portfolio of initially small actions that scale up to effect larger political, economic, and social transformations. While we explored specific architectural interventions we introduced systemic catalysts including organizational partnership models, identity systems, and mechanisms that allow communities to access services far beyond their local branch. Together these strategies bring into view normally hidden aspects of library system operations, re-framing urgent state of good repair needs as an opportunity for radical acts that contribute to the social and civic health of the city.

On December 4, UNION, along the the 4 other participating teams, presented our vision to New York City elected officials, civic, and cultural leaders at a design showcase and policy symposium hosted at the Japan Society, New York. Videos of the presentations can be viewed here.

UNION:
Annie Barrett, architect and principal of Annie Barrett Studio; Adriel Mesznik, principal of Adriel Mesznik Architecture; Ann Whiteside, Harvard Graduate School of Design librarian and assistant dean for information resources; Bryan Boyer, designer and principal of Dash Marshall; Ceren Bingol, senior architect at OMA; Helen Han, architect and filmmaker; Jane Lea, project architect at Architecture Research Office; Landon Brown, designer, researcher, and director of VisionArc; Ryan Thacker, graphic designer at Might Could; Sapna Advani, urban design and planning director at Grain Collective; and Scott Geiger, writer and critic.

From the Architectural League:
Branch libraries are serving more New Yorkers in more ways than ever before, yet they remain undervalued by policymakers. This summer, The Architectural League is collaborating with the Center for an Urban Future on a design study that will articulate new architectural, financial, and programmatic possibilities for these essential, neighborhood-based resource centers.

The design study will culminate with a public event this fall, featuring a presentation of the participants’ work and discussion with advocates and policymakers around issues drawn from the study.

Image credit: Alex Proimos

The Sur Center for Maritime Futures is an institutional concept developed by VisionArc for a client working in conjunction with the Omani Ministry of Culture and Heritage. We were challenged to bring contemporary thinking to the historical depth and positive future for maritime activity in the Gulf state. The new Center will build upon the rich history of boat building, international trade, and coastal habitation that have shaped Omani society. Its long-term mission will be to strengthen the historic continuity between Oman’s maritime past and the future: threading together a wide range of social, cultural, economic, and technological opportunities for coastal culture in Oman.

The Center will function as a hub for maritime heritage, providing a platform for Culture, Education,Technology, and Leadership. The Center will be a robust and valuable asset to Sur, the Ash Sharqiyah region, and to the nation by building and sustaining links between these four key interests. These programs will be organized into a series of clusters capable of operating independently or collaboratively.

“From the discussion, there was a prevailing sentiment that the traditional top-down approach to city design is outdated in an increasingly complex and urban world. Over-determined policies and master-designs which have attempted to reduce complexity have “de-urbanized” the city and resulted in the loss of knowledge and spontaneity which form the essence of the city. In place of the top-down approach, some participants called for a “democratization of design” which puts citizens at the heart of the design process.

Participants debated whether democratic design could actually work in cities. The outcome was an overarching call for balance. Participants resisted the temptation to say that democratic design is the only future. They acknowledged that some of the best urban spaces – the grand boulevards of Paris – were the result of grand-scale master-planning, and recognized that design by consensus can often fail to yield badly needed sweeping changes for pressing social problems. The future must accommodate both approaches. The role of the specialized designer and citizens must thus must be recognized for their potential in the city design process.”

*Text courtesy of The World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Design and Innovation

“eco.villages focuses on finding a sustainable future for Switzerland’s mountain villages – and by extension for rural communities around the world – with a focus on simultaneously meeting environmental, social and economic needs. We see plenty of potential growth industries for villages: sustainable agriculture and tourism, clean energy production, home-working services, and education.”

The term Après-ski (after skiing) traditionally refers to those social activities with friends after a day on the mountain. Within the context of the eco.villages initiative we have endeavored to ask how “after skiing” may become shorthand for design processes which support social, economic and ecological vitality within rural alpine communities? How does “after skiing” allow us to envision new futures when confronting challenges ranging from climate change to demographic shifts- at a moment when so much of the ambition for design innovation has shifted towards our urban contexts?

Visitors to the Community Visioning event were provided with stickers that could be applied to the wall next to prompts indicating a range of wishes from “wanting” to “having” to “giving” in their community. A series of symbols arrayed along the bottom of the wall mural, would allow users to match their responses to a specific category of community needs or resources- from education and employment to family services, recreation and open space.

As a low-tech, interactive component the Community Visioning initiative served to attract visitors and become a catalyst for wider dialogue between Poe Park and the surrounding community. Data collected served as a tool to communicate to city agencies and organizations. The near-term goal was to capture the participation and feedback from local residents and stakeholders, generating future programming concepts in parallel with those currently on offer at the visitors center. This includes educational, civic and cultural initiatives. In the long term, the Poe Park pilot is designed to suggest opportunities for connecting other Parks facilities to specific communities and networks present throughout New York City.

The Community Visioning installation is a joint project with NYC Parks and VisionArc. Technical support and planning guidance were provides by members of City Parks Foundation/Partnerships for Parks and People Make Parks.

From the organizers:
“eco.villages focuses on finding a sustainable future for Switzerland’s mountain villages – and by extension for rural communities around the world – with a focus on simultaneously meeting environmental, social and economic needs. We see plenty of potential growth industries for villages : sustainable agriculture and tourism, education, clean energy production, home-working services, education.”

There Mori and Brown presented a vision for sustainable rural development entitled “Après-ski”, or “After Skiing (and beyond)”. Culled from an ongoing design research initiative in collaboration with stakeholders from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Ecos, and Liebreich Foundation, “Après-ski” represents a new vision for economic, environmental and social sustainability in rural communities at a moment when much of the ambition for design innovation has shifted towards urban contexts.

See VisionArc’s contribution to the Arena Calcetto installation here and check out the text to “Ultradisciplinary Futures” below or find it online here

Features
Ultradisciplinary Futures
June 19, 2013
Issue: AR 130 Pawn

Lucy Humphrey and Claire McCaughan of Archrival explore an ‘ultradisciplinary’ future, which surpasses the previously specified extent and limits of practice.

Author Lucy Humphrey, Claire McCaughan

Architecture is a relatively newly defined profession and the practice of architecture, historically, is not a precisely defined term. ‘The architect’ has drifted between master-builder, engineer and artist for centuries, and it was not until the 1800s that the modern day profession was established. Today the profession of architecture has been described as being in a state of crisis and Archrival considers this to be the result of an ill-defined contemporary profession, one that is further limited by reinforcing ideas of practicing ‘within’ or ‘outside’ of a professional boundary. Without actively promoting a broader idea of practice, we fuel an ongoing identity crisis; and without challenging contemporary practice we cannot realistically define a strategic response to the discipline’s crisis.

Documents such as ‘The Future for Architects?’ report by Building Futures provide background and statistics about how architectural practice will operate or decline in a changing world. In response, many architects are developing ‘new practices’ and expanding their reach by working in ‘interdisciplinary roles’. As an exhibitor in Formations: New Practices in Australian Architecture at the 13th Venice International Architecture Biennale, Archrival strategically concerned itself with exploring and challenging traditional practice boundaries.

In seeking co-contributors for the Arena Calcetto installation, Archrival connected a field of international collaborators that revealed their own strategic responses to the forecast crisis. Business consultancies such as McKinsey & Company argue that with clear strategy there is no reason to fear uncertainty and responding to change can be used to one’s competitive advantage. In examining key projects by four of the Biennale collaborators, we consider that by utilising realistic and accurate strategies, these practices are able to look beyond the self-governed boundaries of practice, and ahead to new opportunities for the discipline, by actively contributing to a redefinition of the scope of architectural practice. Rather than being seen as interdisciplinary, these practices capitalise on their design expertise and reveal the potential for interdisciplinary work to become critically ‘ultradisciplinary’. We might define the ultradisciplinary architectural practice as one that is beyond or surpassing the previously specified extent, range or limits of practice.

In creating unique fussball players for Arena Calcetto, four collaborators linked to Gap Filler (Christchurch, NZ), Diatom Studio (Wellington, NZ and London, UK), CAN (Critical Architecture Network) (London, UK) and VisionArc (New York, US) offer exclusive insights into their own expanded views of practice. The first example occurred in the strategic pairing of Mark Leong (Gap Filler collaborator) and Tiago Rorke (Diatom Studio), who simultaneously explore new digital fabrication technologies and community activism. In their first joint venture, a hardwearing concrete and steel fussball team was created and shared online as open-source material for future replication. Leong is a collaborator with Gap Filler, who activate urban spaces in post- earthquake Christchurch. As an architectural ‘free agent’, his social-minded focus has been played out in renegade community works such as The Night Club for Gap Filler’s Playtime project (2012), a competition-winning scheme for a temporary outdoor cinema designed to activate one of many vacant blocks in a city undergoing a painful transition period.

The project is a critical urban intervention in Christchurch where, in the wake of the earthquake, architects wait for the ‘gold rush of reconstruction’, but neglect the urgent need for an immediate renewal of public space to avoid alienation from their own city. In his strategic involvement with the Biennale, Leong paired with Rorke of Diatom Studio – a small practice with a dual base in Wellington and London. Diatom’s interest lies in open-source digital fabrication and the potential to integrate designers, academics and online users with the design and making process. Echoed in the aesthetic of their metropolis- like fussball series, online projects such as SketchChair present cutting edge technology that embraces new opportunities for user-driven design, fabrication and customisation tools. Developed in collaboration with JST Erato Design UI in Tokyo, the project provides an open-source software tool that encourages the emergence of the user as co-author, while promoting the necessary role of the designer as facilitator, synthesiser and editor. Although operating at a small scale, both Leong and Rorke proactively explore potentials for community engagement and activation that preserve a critical future role for designers. Their facilitation of diverse community projects, whether urban regeneration or open-source digital design, strategically promotes the valuable application of their professional skills in response to contemporary conditions.

Working at a similar scale, CAN is a young, entrepreneurial practice within London’s bleak financial climate. The single object produced for the Australian Pavilion was a playful expression of CAN’s bold multidisciplinary approach, integrating fine art, architecture, furniture and graphics. Entitled Made by Many, the fussball object presents a meticulous composition of 1:100 scale human figures. Led by Mat Barnes and Eddie Blake, CAN mobilises specialists on a project-by-project basis. In creating the temporary signage system entitled Barbican Weekender Scenography (2012) CAN playfully implemented their spatial expertise within Europe’s largest multi-arts venue. Describing the graphic product as ‘scenography’, the project explored the creation of signage using ‘playful swarms of lo-fi electronics and parasitic floating signage’, juxtaposed against the Brutalist context of the Barbican. Having previously exhibited with other cultural giants such as Dezeen with Dezeen Platform in 2011, CAN demonstrate an atypical application of architectural skill, paired with their strategic alignment with dominant cultural institutions, in well-marketed public forums during an economic downturn.

Beyond the strategic effectiveness of these emerging practices, the final collaborator demonstrates the extraordinary potential for ‘interdisciplinary’ projects to increase the architect’s professional value. VisionArc’s graphically didactic fussball team represents the studio’s strategic global reach through cutting edge research projects. Design thinking has emerged as a valuable skill in the last decade and yet architects have been slow to understand or capitalise on the market. Founder Toshiko Mori and director Landon Brown operate VisionArc, a think tank dedicated to exploring ‘how designers might use this moment as an opportunity to catalyse their own transition into new modes of practice and broader fields of engagement’. Strategically operating as a research and visualisation consultancy, VisionArc mobilises design initiatives and fosters new and inspiring design futures through the integration of landscape, architecture,politics and science. Research is presented through engaging films such as Design Blind Spots 2050, commissioned by the DesignSingapore Council in 2009 as a speculative research project for the ICSID World Design Congress. The project coins the term ‘design blind spot’, a concept defined as ‘fields not currently known to integrate design thinking or strategy’. VisionArc outlines the enormous potential for designers to reframe global issues and new models of design practice by identifying and presenting solutions to global design blind spots. By designing how to facilitate collaboration itself, VisionArc suggest the key lies in the architect’s ability to operate across complex networks of stakeholders and policies, as well as to integrate competing ‘information silos’.

In dissecting the issue of oil sands mining in northern Canada, Design Blindspots 2050 presents a critical design future for architects, where by 2050 designers are sought out ‘as intermediaries capable of identifying blind spots across a wide spectrum of issues all crucial to the future of production, mobility and resources’. The project convincingly highlights the architect’s valuable role in global policy-making and development initiatives, demonstrating a critical future for architectural practice through extensive ‘ultradisciplinary’ projects.

The spectrum of practice represented by these studios underlines an expanding architectural profession. Instead of portraying a practice as outside of a professional boundary, we might consider the strategic value in actively promoting a wider and more marketable view of our discipline – one with greater opportunities for engagement. By determining realistic and strategic responses to economic, political, environmental and social conditions, and by operating in an ‘ultradisciplinary’ format, these practices are actively redefining the constructs of the profession and expanding the agency of architectural practice. Gap Filler, Diatom Studio, CAN and VisionArc are leading examples of professional advocacy and disciplinary adaptation across a range of scales, bringing about change from the level of the individual practitioner to the profession as a whole. The evolving profession must celebrate these examples as they walk the tightrope between artistic endeavour and business success.