MID CITY STUDIO

     In all honesty, it was difficult for me to invest myself into the project and in our neighborhood during the initial analysis. Part of me can blame only documenting the physical and environmental aspects of the site, while the other piece was confused on where to direct the focus of design. Who was the primary focus of all of the gathered information supposed to be aimed towards? The history team did a wonderful job of arguing and supporting the case for the surrounding neighborhood. Housing seemed to be pushing for the interests of MCRA while homelessness analyzed through the lens St. Vincent de Paul’s. And while these three groups may not have expressed keen interest in food systems, our professors guided the last programming group into the discovery of the local food deserts. In essence, there were four different groups, not contradicting, but contending for consideration in design; all of which warranted a thorough review.

     While our approach to our investigation was justified, communication between the overall group of students was extremely complicated. No one was truly aware of what each group was tasked with and as result, a lot of overlapping of responsibilities occurred. One physical instance of this problem was our presence on the site during Mid City Speaks. There were too many people vying for the attention of the residents, and consequently I am afraid that our overwhelming presence may have been intimidating. A simple solution to this for the future may be to separate the class into groups that can come to the event in waves, decreasing the total number of students at one time but increasing the possibilities for one on one interaction.

     Moving on from analysis and criticism, we are left with a question to take forward: What is important for the neighborhood and its residents? Simply put, the answers are to increase safety, create an area for children to go after school, a space for workforce development, and a grocery store. Although these answers may be simple by themselves, together they create somewhat of a conflict of interest between the neighborhood consumers and the business patrons. However, moving forward, this instills a welcome challenge of how to remedy complex desires through design.