Mission

This proposal seeks to use the Steemit platform and Steem blockchain as an educational tool and community-design infrastructure. Our mission is to teach a college-level design course using Steemit as an exclusive interface. The proposed course, titled; “Social x Design” will explore the impact of this new technology on architectural environments and the public realm.

Summary

We are architects, artists, urban planners and educators. Our collective, Hither Yon ( @hitheryon, @voronoi, @hansikhouse ) has been developing a proposal that seeks to engage the broader creative community through the Steemit platform and Steem blockchain. Currently, we are in conversation with multiple college and graduate-level design schools in New York City where we are aiming to teach a course about socially empowered design in the Fall Semester of 2017.

In this proposed course, we hope to use Steemit as an exclusive interface for our students to post research, explore ideas, work-in-process and engage with the community as a whole. At the end of the course, students will power-down and pool their Steem tokens to fund physical prototypes for public art, sculpture, street-furniture, and community oriented designs.

We believe that this new outlet would open Steemit to an internationally talented new community of creatives and serve as an exciting laboratory to explore ways of using Steem to transform physical spaces.

Problem

Today, design education is increasingly out-of-touch. There are very few opportunities for students to integrate their work in real communities, real social situations, and provide solutions for real problems.

This traditional way of learning and making within an isolated environment has prevented the architectural profession (and many other creative fields) from being actionable with respect to contemporary issues. This habit of isolated-learning dissuades practitioners from collaboration and inhibits long-term commitment concerning communities.

If the field of architecture and design is to be changed - the educational, social and financial foundation it operates off of must change first.

Solution

This proposal seeks to integrate Steemit into the educational design-learning-process, encouraging young creatives to shift away from speculation and move towards real-world impact.

Our course “Social x Design” will seek to develop a transparent and constructive dialogue with the community that the students are serving - and in turn - use the digital proceeds of “likes” to fund real architectural interventions at a local level. As part of the course, we will be partnering with a local community garden, park or public plaza in New York City. Our students will have real collaborators, both globally (Steemians) and locally (New Yorkers). Every step - research, production, fabrication and construction will be recorded through Steemit and made available for your constructive feedback, critique and involvement.

Desired Outcome

The aim of the course is for our students to discover new ways of thinking, imagining, designing and building sustainable community projects. Steemit provides a new avenue for social engagement while the Steem blockchain provides a new infrastructure and means of tapping into social power.

Proposed Course Structure

Student’s will work individually and in teams to create Steemit accounts where they will post ideas and share their design progress throughout the semester. By tagging each post #socialxdesign, Steemit will act as an interactive archive for the course as well as an interface to organize assignments, midterms and final presentations.

As a whole, the studio/seminar will be oriented around workshops, short lectures, site visits and roundtable discussions. Assignments will be broken down in three parts- Research, Experimentation and Production. The first two parts (Research and Experimentation) will be opportunities for each student-team to fundraise for their project vision. In the final stage, students will use their accumulated Steem funds to produce a final 1:1 scale prototype that will be temporarily installed on-site.

Proposed Studio Schedule : (14 weeks)

Research, Experimentation & Production.

Week 1 – Studio Introduction, Assignment 1
Week 2 – Site Visits and Context Research, Steemit Workshop 1 and Post Schedule
Week 3 – Roundtable Discussion
Week 4 – Pin-up, Intro to Assignment 2
Week 5 - Desk Critique
Week 6 – Public Workshop
Week 7 - Desk Critique

Week 8 – Midterm Community Presentation

Week 9 - Desk Critique
Week 10 - Design-Build Session 1
Week 11 – Roundtable Discussion, Desk Critique
Week 12 - Design-Build Session 2
Week 13 - Prototype Mockup, Documentation

Week 14 - Final Review on-site

Week 15+ - Publication of Student Work + Exhibition at a Local Gallery

Cost

No cost. Just supportive and constructive engagement.

Part of the course challenge will revolve around how well students engage with YOU all, the Steemit community and the local community in New York City that they aim to serve. As teachers, we will be grading (in part) how well student groups are able to gain YOUR following and upvoter support.

Student teams will be allowed to ask for Steem donations to support their design-build ideas, but will otherwise rely on upvotes, comments and resteeming as their ideas develop through the semester.

NOTE : 100% of the rewards from this post will be divided up equally among student accounts at the start of the (anticipated) Fall 2017 semester. Until that time, Steem rewards will be placed in the @hitheryon savings account.

Thank you

Thank you so much for your time, enthusiasm and support. We are very excited for the potential of this proposal and hope that our mission resonates with you and your vision of the platform. Thank you and Steem on!

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Follow us @hitheryon

@voronoi / @hansikhouse