The Community Design Collaborative

This past Friday I went to a presentation of a pro bono collaborative design charrette by infillphiladelphia at the At the Center for Architecture. Four teams presented their concepts and had them reviewed by a guest panel of experts consisting of various movers and shakers in the community. The four teams took one day to come up with temporary design solutions for underutilized and ugly public spaces in Philadelphia. I wasn't too impressed with some of the designers presentation skills especially since these were all working professionals, primarily architects, landscape architects, urban planners and interior designers but a few people made up where the others were lacking.

I thought some of the better ideas came from the younger designers who ideas were much more creative and funny. Some concepts were creating a place where its ok to go and break bottles, temporary food huts for expensive restaurants to sell their food at friendlier prices, creating a community center without the building, making a safe place where kids could camp out in the city, and integrating water sound-sculptures with an abandoned railroad bridge.

I found out about the event from The Community Design Collaborative which I heard about through Patrycja Doniewski while I was at Qb3 design's open studio for Design Philadelphia. I plan on trying to attend and partake in a project with the The Community Design Collaborative, it seems like a great way to meet and work with designers in other fields and hopefully do some design for the greater good. Plus I do not think they have any Industrial Designers working on projects, I think I would bring a very unique perspective to the sessions.


The neon signs were also a highlight


bonus: awesome haircut in attendance