WORKSHOP: An Energy Design Storm
Framework: This one-day workshop uses a combination of interdisciplinary methods, including team formation, ethnographic research, improvisation, design sprints, and shared data with custom mobile-media tools in order to address site-specific, energy-related issues in public space.
Practical Application: First tested in Phoenix between art and engineering students and faculty of Arizona State University and the University of New Mexico, and initiated through the interdisciplinary National Science Foundation award Sustainable Energy Pathways, this one-day workshop is based upon a model that is easily implemented in other municipalities like the Bay Area.
To begin, we will form interdisciplinary teams and demonstrate team-building exercises. Teams will then embark on a scavenger hunt in the city to compile a Tweet/photo and custom sensor database tied to particular Bay Area issues in public space and built environments. Once data has been captured, teams will explore site-specific, sustainable solutions through a series of design sprints. After the workshop, solutions can be virtually shared through Twitter in order to engage everyone, from community members to local government officials.
In this storm, participants will have a chance to try some design storm techniques including: the human machine/icebreaker; forming effective interdisciplinary teams; a Twitter hashtag scavenger hunt; data gathering using smartphones and custom tools, including the student-created Datagather Android app; and timed design sprints.
Associate Professor, Fine Arts and Engineering and Mesa Del Sol Endowed Chair of Digital Media
The University of New Mexico
Andrea Polli is currently an associate professor in Fine Arts and Engineering in the area of Art & Ecology and Mesa Del Sol Endowed Chair of Digital Media at the University of New Mexico, where she directs a research lab called the Social Media Workgroup at the school’s Center for Advanced Research Computing. Her work has appeared in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Artport, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Los Angeles Times, Art in America,ARTnews, and the New Yorker and has been recognized by Fulbright, UNESCO, and the National Science Foundation. Her most recent book, Far Field: Digital Culture, Climate Change and the Poles, was published by Intellect Books. Polli is an editor of MIT Press’s Leonardo Music Journal (LMJ) and vice president of the American Society for Acoustic Ecology.
