Fall Curriculum /
Gathering Institutional Knowledge
The intention of the Fall Curriculum is to enable design students to enter the life of the neighborhood, and, together with youth researchers, produce new tools and visualizations that amplify neighborhood knowledge and transform institutional knowledge.
The Curriculum begins with youth researchers interviewing design and city planning students who are interested in becoming involved in Mixplace. The newly expanded group self-selects into teams, and social contracts are filmed to articulate mutual responsibilities and expectations. The teams choose particular narratives from the summer that they would like to further explore. Using these narratives as a script, the youth researchers host and guide the students through the life of their neighborhoods and identify particular traces and gestures that they would like to further investigate and amplify. After, the design and city planning students host and guide the youth researchers through their school and the institutional knowledge they are studying, and select particular forms of institutional knowledge to engage with such as texts, essays, and scripts.
In the months that follow, the selection of summer narratives and institutional knowledge leads to the production of tools and alternative forms of visualization such as mappings and cartographies. The goal is to problematize and redefine conventional representations of the neighborhood. This process is supported by a diverse floating faculty of community organizers, designers, researchers, and other professionals, as well as shared meals and weekly conversation. At the end of this phase, there is a public celebration and conferring of certificates from the design school to the group.
Overview
- Month 1/September: Introduction to Mixplace and the idea of Social Contracts
- Month 2/October: Ways of Visualizing
- Month 3/November: Ways of Constructing Tools
- Month 4/December: Final Presentations
Learn more
- Institutional Knowledge