Social Design

The idea of Social design is to create positive change in the community and see how design help solve issues within the community. Also, how you take on a responsibility as a designer and many opportunities present themselves for you to have a leading role. In the Citizen Architect: Rural Studio, students who were majoring in architecture helped the people who had no home and in areas of the community where they needed the most help. So as architects they were taking on a very important role of building one man a home. In trying to think of how design could help a community this is what I came up with.

            In many areas of the country, whichever state, some of the more underprivileged towns cannot serve to many senior citizens needs. I know in the more privileged areas of living Senior Citizens come first, but for an example in the area where I live, there is one home for Senior Citizens and it is just awful. The building is a nasty bright blue and has no areas for recreation, nor other activities besides sitting outside and watching the birds fly by. This may seem like just an architectural job, but not only would I like to focus on the construction of building; but the actual facilities and events within the building. A lot of these people in the area where I live are also homeless, so meals being served to you at the door or in a white walled cafeteria isn’t exactly comforting like home. How could art or design serve as a help to the community? By coming up with an easily accessible, comforting Senior Citizen/Homeless shelter in areas where they can’t afford to build one this would be a project for us as designers.

            This would be a collaborative project along with architects of course. For starters; have the dining area designed to feel more like home. Tables that seat six, with placemats and everything. Not only will this make them feel like they are back at home, but it won’t feel like it’s a cafeteria at a soup kitchen. This will also encourage them to socialize and avoid sitting alone creating isolation. The “recreation” area that most of the other homes include 3 or 4 tv’s with chairs or a few lazy boys to watch. That is just awful. I find it more interesting to create a cinema ambience. I’m not saying we are going to build movie theaters either, take the size of the projector screens in the computer lab for instance. Have four rooms where different selections of movies are playing or tv shows and have comfortable couches, or individual lazy-boys for them to rest in. This would be a purpose of entertainment or even the daily ritual of watching the news. Last but not least; an open Art Expression area. This would be the biggest construction of the whole home. It would ideally be an open area, with a glass roof so the daylight would be visible. I just feel the enclosed areas are too depressing especially people that are homeless and of age. There would be easels for painters and drawers; open space for collaging/scrapbooks/ knitting etc.etc. an area for music such as pianos; guitars; etct..not any electric guitars of course. The original card playing table for all our big time gamblers. For outside, depending of the location we can’t really build them a huge landscape and build a swimming pool. A small walking path would be nice, with a small garden here and there.

            The purpose to come up with this project is to give accessibility to people who don’t get it because of the area in which they live in. By holding campaigns and asking for local business to chip in this could hopefully be a successful project. We could design posters for fund raising events; have a benefit dinner in which hopefully government officials from the area could attend and hopefully offer to make some donations. I believe in helping out the communities that are in need. It’s part of making them feel like they have not been forgotten about, and I think about my own family. If there was no other place for them to go for some odd reason, I would feel horrible knowing their only option in an underprivileged area was the worst. It’s about reaching out to these communities and reminding them there is always opportunity for them to experience the goodness of people. Hoping everyone cooperates and playing the responsible and ambitious as well as generous designer, this could be a successful project.