#betterworldbydesign

[elishaprojectsharemarket]

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#epfoodrescue #wastenotnation #brownuniversity #brownfrn Lou & Julia were busy this past weekend rescuing more than 500lbs from #betterworldbydesign conference through #elishaproject that fed many families and people #disabledvet (at Brown University)

[studio-lore-blog]

Catch us at the @betterxdesign #khdt2017 pre-event with @aiga_ri #printing up a storm and #loreonbrook showcasing our #emergingartists & #emergingdesigners who make a difference in the world with the work the do! #betterworldbydesign #aigari #lorecollection #popupshop #brownuniversity (at J. Walter Wilson Building)

[fatalpotato]

Fun at the #betterworldbydesign conference 🌞#risd #brownuniversity #pneuhausfabricprism #smallchild (at Brown University Main Greens)

[brownsteam]

Meet Me in the Middle

September 25th

As the debut event for the STEAM Pavilion, which was created in collaboration with Providence-local Pneuahus and Brown STEAM over the past year, Brown STEAM led a workshop for the 2015 Better World by Design conference, titled “Meet Me in the Middle.”

Better World by Design is a student-organized conference held annually at Brown + RISD that facilitates collaboration between designers, educators, and innovators. The theme this year was access.

Jonelle Ahiligwo ’16 and Kenji Endo ’18 led the workshop, which focused on the ways the physical structures and spaces we meet at can influence the conversations we have within them. The workshop used the STEAM Pavilion as a starting point to discuss the design and use of physical interdisciplinary, inclusive meeting spaces, ones that can create a point of access from different disciplines for exploration in a ‘middle,’ ‘neutral’ ground.

During the second half of the workshop, participants split into small groups to imagine some meeting spaces of their own. Half were given a hollow object (e.g. tubes, bottles, basket), and tasked to imagine what sort of function that form could take. The other half were given a purpose (e.g. dancing, play, studio), and tasked to consider what potential forms could achieve that function.

After a share and tell of the particpants’ innovative responses of the above prompt, we concluded the workshop with the encouragement to challenge the existing uses of spaces and be more flexible with how we use physical structures every day.

While we had trouble with projecting on the bright white wall of the newly-born STEAM Pavilion, it was incredible to see people interacting and enjoying this new space, which will hopefully become an ongoing meeting space for STEAM as a community. 

See more images of the STEAM Pavilion on our Facebook. 

[crawlingthroughthegalazy-blog]

So, the conference is over, but I kept you guys generally updated on things, but I'm gonna put some more things in, and talk about the actual conference. So pre-warning this will be long, like REALLY REALLY LONG.

  We start the journey on Friday evening as my parents drove me to BWI so that we could go to Rhode Island. My mom, dad, and brother came to drop me off. My brother only came, because I tickled him into it. He was worried about it being "too sad" which was the cutest thing ever.

  Once we had succesfully arrived at the airport, we sat down and waited. We waited until about 5 minutes until our meet up time to text the chaperone, because we couldn't see anyone. It turned out, that we were sitting about 50 feet away from them, but couldn't see them. They were sitting by security, while I was sitting by check-in. After moving towards them, I quickly got a sum of who would actually be attending the trip. It was to be me, Becky, Mr. Howard, Dr. Madison, Maya, and Myles. Once we were all ready, we went through security. I got to cut part of the line, due to a TSA Pre mistake, however I still had to wait in a small line.

  Then of course, we walked to the port and boarded the plane. Because it was Southwest, there were boarding groups and boarding numbers, but no assigned seats. The 3 "children" a.k.a me, Myles, and Maya, as well as her dad, were in the Group A seating, so we were in charge of saving seats. The airplane flight to Rhode Island, I sat next to Becky and Dr. Madison. It was a pretty nice flight. I listened to some A Very Potter Musical music (from all three musicals of course) and talked to Becky a little bit.

  Once we arrived we caught a taxi and were taken straight to the Marriot Hotel, which was right across the street from the Girl Scouts of Rhode Island building. Inside of Marriot looked like a great big comfy 70's throwback with a gentle orange color scheme. There were plush seats, leather sofas, drawn back curtains and small tables. We waited for our rooms to be checked in, talking about what we would do on Saturday and our lack of swim suits for the indoor hot tub. Except for Myles, who had miraculously thought of and remembered to bring a swim suit to Rhode Island, for a day long trip. 

  We quickly found our rooms and sat our stuff down. Maya and I were sharing a two bed room, I took the bed on the right, closest to the bathroom.

  As you know, we spent the night watching Mean Girls until about 11. This is when I went to bed.

  In the morning I got dressed and ready to go, along with Maya. Around 7:55 we walked down stairs to the lobby, where we would be meeting the others. Myles was already down stairs and ready. After everyone else arrived we discussed the previous night, only to find out that Myles hadn't gone to bed until about 1 am because he decided to go to the hot tub until they forced him out at 11, and then given himself a personal tour of the hotel.

  We then went over the general plan for the presentation and practiced our assigned parts. I had the part on Media Literacy, which was basically talking about the tools that the media uses to attract customers, and how we used that to turn against the companies those ads came from. This, we did all from the hotel lobby on Becky's amazing MAC.

  Afterwards we travelled to Brown University. Fist Muffin, it was huge! Like, I've never seen anything like it. It was really quaint thought too, which was interesting. It was like this college built around a town or something like that. We ate a "breakfast" basically I had 1 and 1/2 apples. Not too great, but it worked for the time being.

  We quickly rehearsed and practiced as people trickled in for our presentation. All in all about 20 people came, and that was nearly every seat filled, with 4 standing in the back.

  The entire panel, with the information, the Q & A, and the activity were just such a blast. It was the raddest thing I've ever done, and I can't wait to do it again someday. Afterwards we went into one of those huge ass bio-dome things, except it was inflattable and multi-colored and was just a soft cool place to sit? It was cool though. It was like a huge, hot room. I literally could have stayed in there for hours if they had let me, but we had to go get lunch. So we didn't like the provided lunch options so we walked around campus, checked out the book-store (I bought a nice little Brown sweatshirt) and then we went to an amazing pizza place called "Nice Slice", which turned into a running joke for the rest of the day. We ended up going to the mall aterwards, and stayed there for about two hours. It was a HUGE mall, with 5 floors of stores. The only thing I bought was pizza.

  Once we were done, we proceeded to go to the smallest airport I have ever seen in my entire life. There was literally no one there. It didn't matter that we had TSA Pre, because there was 0 line at Security, and only a small line at the Check-in. But this is hwere it gets cool. I was wearing my super comfy Breakfast Club shirt, and I guess the security guards were really bored, so they complimented me, and had a short confused conversation about my shirt. Once I had gotten through the "line", I was greeted by Dr. Madison and one of those airport golf carts, that Dr. Madison had arranged us a RIDE ON!!!!!!!! I sat on the back and it was literally the best experience of my entire life. I seriously want to do it again forever. After that the journey became rather boring, so I'll just tell you that Maya, Miles, and I all sat together on the way home, and we all got picked up, end of story. I would go farther but then my family gets involved, and it all goes down hill, aside from happiness to see me and what not.

   But overall it was an amazing trip and I can't wait to do it again.