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!
Follow us @hitheryon
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I support this 100%. I would very much enjoy interacting with students and giving them both a social incentive as well as a monetary incentive to do their works on here. [:
It will also boost my cognitive functions a bit as well.
You get the Semantralist seal of approval!!!
Fantastic! Thanks for the kind and supportive feedback @semantralist! We are so excited to have students use and engage through this platform. Looking forward to lots of great discussions and critiques!
As I read about your vision, I'm starting to see it in action. This is brilliant and potentially game changing for so many people, I can see the far-reaching repercussions. One thought - will the teachers be receiving funding in this model? I think it's important that they are even if it's by the same means - upvotes + donations.
Thank you @natureofbeing! We believe the same. The implications of this are very exciting and potentially very disruptive. On your note - we are still thinking that through. We may use @hitheryon posts through the semester to reward teachers, while the students will be responsible for their own fund-raising. Or some combination. If the school is paying us to teach... we may just divide up rewards from @hitheryon posts and split evenly among students. Sort of like a seed fund and also a possible grading mechanism.
Being a student of Architectural Design I feel it to be my duty to respond to this post, but all Ive got is sign me up!
Fantastic! That's incredible to great to hear @crypto-pontiff! We'll be seeking you out for feedback as this progresses. Stay tuned.
Wow. Amazing idea. May you guys succeed to your highest hopes and beyond with this... 🙏💖
Thank you @rok-sivante that means a lot to us! Stay tuned for more updates as Social x Design progresses!
Very well presented and a good read!
Thank you for your support and kind feedback @chitty!
Fantastic idea. 100% in support. Understanding that the steemit platform can also be used as a marketplace to buy or sell anything using the transparency of the steem blockchain for security I think is important to see... and may help illustrate for the students how future decentralised marketplace platforms could function?
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@steemshop/steem-shopping-has-arrived
It's obvious that a lot of thought (time) went into this. More importantly, the goal is something worthy of all our time -- moving in the direction of positive change(s) for the community/ society.
It all comes down to action now.
This project will have my continued support.
Thanks @jamesbrown! Agreed, now is the time for action. We're confident that these next steps are achievable and we're working hard to make sure they happen. Thank you very much for your support and enthusiasm!
You're welcome, and thank you for providing something worthy of community support and enthusiasm :)
This is a very interesting concept, I wish you all the best!
Thank you! Stay tuned for more @digicrypt
Will do! Followed! I was looking at some of your other posts...a lot of good stuff about community interaction. I thought you might find this post fascinating.
https://steemit.com/life/@digicrypt/the-internet-s-greatest-social-experiment-yet-reddit-place
That's a of a similar vein to our collaborative drawing experiments. Super cool @digicrypt, amazing post and a fascinating social experiment!
I just checked that drawing post out, that is awesome! I used to play a game similar to that but more simple when I was a kid. It is amazing to see what can be done when creative people work together!
Using games as design tools! Absolutely!
What a powerful initiative! This platform is going to the moon and, if giant networking groups such as the students' communities that will be involved in this schooling offers recognizable quality, this trip to our natural satellite will be rocketing!!! Thanks a bunch for all your work, namaste :)
Absolutely, there's so much potential for students to engage with this community. Thanks so much Eric! Namaste!
Frank Approves this IDEA, PROPOSAL, PROJECT
Follow, Upvote, Resteem
Thank you for your support Frank! Followed back :)