Socks and Shitstorming
Imagine if all the world’s biggest problems could each be solved in an hour. Not convinced? Take a look at rapid prototyping, a new social advocacy method. Being an architecture student, I had only heard of rapid prototyping in an engineering or architectural context, as a way of literally printing out 3D models of digitally designed industrial products or buildings. I had never considered applying such a computerized process to a social problem until I attended BRUTE LAB’s projectOPEN workshop during the Better World by Design conference. Combining these two previously separate notions is essentially what projectOPEN does, and does well.
This group has noted two specific issues. The first is that people living on the streets do not know their rights and do not know whether or not they are breaking the law in their daily lives, either by staying overnight certain places or gathering abandoned items, food, or otherwise. The second is that, while in many cities there exist soup kitchens and shelters specifically for these residents, as well as free services like public transportation and open restaurant dumpsters, knowledge of these kinds of places is spread by word of mouth. The idea behind projectOPEN is that if those living on the streets had better access to this information, their living conditions could be much improved. And their favorite way to develop these kinds of social solutions is through rapid prototpying.
Better World by Design, a Brown and RISD student-led conference initiated with the goal of creating a forum for discussion on how design can create positive change, organizes many different speaker sessions, panels, and workshops throughout a three-day stretch. On the first day of this year’s conference, the group projectOPEN hosted a workshop in the Met on their version of the rapid prototyping process. Instead of using machines that pop out models, projectOPEN uses human creativity, and the results are, essentially, really good ideas. As one of the founders, Josh To, explained, BRUTE LABs’ projects range from things like projectOPEN, to trash pick-ups, to educational exercise programs for kids. At BRUTE LABs they stick to a few key values: coming up with ideas that are large in scale and easy to employ, and addressing big societal issues with effective, simple design and immediate, if risky, action. Another group running the workshop, Project M, represented by Mark O’Brien, has worked with BRUTE LABs on a few initiatives and employs similar methods, gathering the brains of community members together for so-called “shitstorms” to come up with quick solutions to whatever societal issue is currently under their radar. Being that an issue like homelessness is complicated and different in every city, it was also necessary for another group, the RI Coalition for the Homeless, to participate so the scheme could be applied to Providence. Taylor Ellowitz, the Communications Associate of the coalition, helps contextualize the homelessness issue in Providence and combine his knowledge with their skills to provide solid answers. In this way, the projectOPEN innovators, while certainly risk-takers, are careful about their work, understanding that they must avoid compromising the value of their work by collaborating with people who have specific information and experience they lack.
According to Ellowitz’s statistics, there are approximately 35,000 homeless people in the city, and with all homeless shelters counted, there is still estimated to be at least 250 bed shortages this upcoming winter. There has also been an alarming rise lately in numbers of families resorting to living on the streets. All of this information was taken into consideration as we got on our hands and knees to begin our ideation. projectOPEN had already initiated their strategy in the city of Santa Monica, California, so they gave us a copy of the informational map that had been successfully posted up for the homeless population there, each with a map of the area, a key to the services previously listed, and a simplified delineation of homeless rights and the laws that apply to them. Put into groups, we were given newsprint and markers and told simply to think, discuss, and draw; emphasis on the drawing. The experience was like that of a studio group project: we critiqued the work in front of us, took note of what was missing in terms of content and format, and came up with potential remedies. Our combined experiences of either art school, academia, or the professional world gave us different angles from which to approach the problem, so that the answers we found were things none of us would likely have come up with on our own. The solutions proposed were a bit unusual and as yet not solidified, but applicable and intelligent to say the least. A second discussion unfolded when each group was given several pairs of socks, scissors, and thread and told to repurpose the socks in some way useful to a homeless person. This tactic was effective in that it got us to put ourselves in the shoes (or more literally, the socks) of the people for whom we were designing.
Although this did not lead us to any one definite answer, it seems to have been successful in many ways: it brought awareness of a heavy problem in the Providence community, gave the moderators a jumping-off point from which to continue their research and design, and, I feel, introduced a new way of thinking about big issues to those who participated. The rapid prototyping philosophy, while similar to the way art students may already work, is unexpected as a way for businesses or non-profits to address societal problems. Pulling these two extremes together and realizing the potential to create something new out of that combination, something that can solve bigger problems relevant to the community, is really exactly what Better World by Design is all about. There is no question that the various conference events that occur each year are successfully bringing the right kinds of inspiration. It is only a matter of taking this progression in thought further to implement real change, to not just envision a “better world by design”, but to actually start building it today, as risky as that may sound.
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