The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs

Begins	25 Apr 2009 - 9:00am
Ends	25 Apr 2009 - 1:00pm
Location

OPEN STUDIO AND COMMUNITY DESIGN LAB WITH HESTER STREET COLLABORATIVE

Parsons The New School for Design
Open Studio and Community Design Lab with Hester Street Collaborative

Date/Time: Saturday, April 25, 9am-1pm
Location: 9-10am: 113 Hester Street, between Eldridge and Forsyth
10am-1pm: 293 East Broadway at Grand (in the park directly next door to the school)

 

The New School students and faculty are invited to visit Hester Street Collaborative's (HSC) studio on April 25, and then join HSC staff and volunteers for a work-date at the P.S. 134 Outdoor Classroom.

Anne Frederick, Executive Director, Hester Street Collaborative

As the founding director of Hester Street Collaborative (HSC), Anne Frederick has worked to develop a community design-build practice that responds to the needs of HSC's local neighborhood of the Lower East Side/Chinatown as well as the needs of under-resourced NYC communities city-wide. Her unique approach to community design integrates education and youth development programming with participatory art, architecture, and planning strategies. This approach is rooted in partnership and collaboration with various community based organizations, schools, and local residents. Prior to founding HSC, Anne worked as an architect at Leroy Street Studio Architecture and as a design educator at Parsons School of Design and the New York Foundation for Architecture. Anne graduated from Parsons School of Design and The New School for Social Research in 1998, and has represented the work of HSC at various conferences, lectures, and exhibitions. To date, she has coordinated design education programs in over a dozen schools citywide, has overseen community design initiatives in a variety of parks and open spaces on the Lower East Side, and has initiated partnerships with a range of local and city-level organizations to improve the built environment in underserved New York neighborhoods.

Hester Street Collaborative's (HSC) was founded in 1998, when Leroy Street Studio (LSS) collaborated on an affordable housing project and Community Center in East New York. LSS worked with future tenants and community members to redesign the public spaces; then, collaborated with local artists to work with the future tenants in fabricating these elements. The project's success inspired the formation of HSC.

HSC implements its mission of improving the physical environment in underserved New York City neighborhoods by using a participatory planning and design approach. HSC's guiding principle is that civic engagement in participatory design helps under-resourced residents have a profound impact on the overall health and well-being of their communities.

HSC works with local residents, particularly youth, to transform neglected public spaces in parks, schools, and affordable housing developments through a "design-build" process which allows stakeholders to have a hands-on role. This participatory design-build approach encourages people to care for their built environment because they have had the opportunity to plan and realize a shared vision.

Much of HSC's recent community-based design work focuses on facilitating community engagement in the capital improvement of parks and open spaces in Lower Manhattan. This work is rooted in an examination the local context, but also provides a model that can be deployed on a city-wide scale.

 

Schedule:

9-10am
Open Studio at HSC

113 Hester Street, between Eldridge and Forsyth

HSC's Executive Director, Anne Frederick will give visitors a tour of the studio and a brief presentation of HSC's community design and education projects in Chinatown and the Lower East Side.

10am-1pm
Community Design Lab at the P.S. 134 Outdoor Classroom

293 East Broadway at Grand (in the park directly next door to the school)

Walk over to the P.S. 134 Outdoor Classroom and get your hands dirty. Visit one of HSC's project sites to see first hand how we are engaging local youth in the improvement of their community spaces. Join HSC staff and volunteers as we prepare the garden for spring workshops. Volunteers will work with local youth build a compost bin, prototype signage, and prepare the garden's vegetable beds for the planting season.