Notes from the Public Studio - Progress report - May 17, 1998
One spoke on the wheel
------------------------------------------Methods of conflict resolution in the planning process.
Creative non-violence methods for generating economic development.
----------------------------------Pleas McNeel -- pleas@salsa.net
Dearest friends,
I’m sending this to all the co-adventurers in the "Knowing Home Collaboration." http://www.salsa.net/knowinghome. For the last five years we have been working together on a number of related projects that I have synthesized into the "Knowing Home Collaboration." I am going to subscribe you to an e-mail list created for the collaboration, which will initially focus on the activities of the Public Studio. As individual project come on line, other lists will be created, but for now I believe we need to see the inter-relatedness of these various endeavors and create a feeling of community.
Remember the "Environmental Design Charrette," well the charrette has an afterlife in cyberspace and soon will have one on video and in the schools. When we started, one of Charrette's goals was to create a collaborative design space on the Internet which we called Public Studio within a framework of "living with water" using the mass media and Internet as tools but distributing this information as broadly as possible. I wildly overestimated the speed at which the design community would embrace the Internet, but it looks we have a critical mass to begin the next phase in our experiment. . By making a eloquent statement about water using these wonderful new tools, we hope to leave a legacy of practical structure that others can use for collaborative community design.
We now have all the technology and the people in place to make this possible, we have just enough money to shoestring the next phase, very close to completion if not all the way. We almost have everyone on e-mail and the Internet. Enough to test our concepts. Let's go for it!
Next phase: Stockpiling the building materials for a one-hour video "Living with Water" In this phase we will assemble the elements for the television show and create a Storyboard at our website and attempt our first major collaboration.
What we have so far.
- Public Studio website is up and our webmaster, Susan Ives, has created the basic structure for our communications hub. http://www.salsa.net/aiasa . We need to fill in the descriptions for the graphics, which will become script elements for the final video.
- "Living with Water" cable series was prepared for the Government Access channel (Cable Channel 21) with a generous grant from then Councilman Howard Peak. Although these are rough they provide major script elements for the final video. Chunks of these short videos will be blended into the final product.
- "Design Charrette Impressions"- Mike Smith and I assembled the EDC cutaways into the video "Design Charrette Impressions," which some of you are using to give folks a taste of what a charrette does and what it feels like. These cutaways will form the mortar for "Living with Water" the little human pieces that hold the piece together.
- As we have discussed, the video will contain a history of the local landscape. The storyboard for this part is nearing completion and can be found at http://www.salsa.net/aiasa/nature
Next Moves
- Another piece will consist of the interviews Randy did with some of the experts at the charrette at KLRN. These interviews will be transcribed and put on the website where we use them as elements in the script. Charrette participants will be able to monitor and comment on the script as it comes to life.
- Location photography - charrette site chairs and representatives tour the five sites with our video crew to illustrate drawings on web site. (Photography has been put on hold because of the haze from the fires in southern Mexico.)
- Three-dimensional map of region using software from ESRI and the GIS lab at San Antonio College
- helicopter shots of sites if we can afford them
- Music and or sound bed.. The music for Impressions was used because it was free and available. We need some high quality original music for the final piece.
Option 1: When the above are completed (except for the music) we could assemble the charrette participants at KLRN with the design boards and tape teams presenting short summations of the work of their teams. We could script this from the videos we made for the government access channel, updating the information as needed. We will do this collaboratively using the web site. The final look and feel of the finished product will be determined by this collaboration.
Our challenge is to assemble these building materials into a useful and beautiful video, with references to hard data on the Internet site, demonstrating how we can live gracefully with our water.
Option 2: We can then craft a workbook/video to distribute to schools and community groups, "Living with Water." We will add music and this will be Public Studio first major completed project.
From the collaborative energies and attention gathered from this postproduction process we will generate the next phase in the creation of Public Studio.
Apache Creek Peace Park - Pilot for networked collaborative design.
To create the final elements for Public Studio we will take what we have learned so far to create a pilot where we can test our assumptions and software such as the use of virtual reality as a community planning tool. We will learn lessons that can be applied on all our projects and form a reality-tested set of tools that will become Public Studio.
The project will focus on the transformation of the Apache and Alazan drainage ditches in a beautiful urban greenway. An upstream extension of the River Walk. The first phase will include a mural project and the construction of a peace park near Cassiano homes. . A PDF file can be found at http://www.salsa.net/aiasa/bridge. The plan will concentrate on the creation of jobs and the introduction high tech skills into one of the most economically disadvantaged areas in the city.
- Peace Park
- a mini charrette under the supervision of Davis Sprinkle and with facilitation from Ann Helmke, children from Project Bridge will design a hands on process for the selection and transformation of a place along Apache Creek into the place where peace and creativity can be continuously celebrated.- 3D Model
We will create a three dimensional model of the Apache Creek watershed using a super computer at southwest research and a team of GIS advanced students using software from ESRI. The model will be used by Project Bridge students and Architects from Public Studio to design a Peace Park in the Cassiano Homes.- Virtual Museum
The community will be invited to contribute information about pre-Columbian culture, plants and animals and this information will be used to establish baseline data for the reintroduction of plants into the landscaping plans.. The information will be put on the projects web site.- Living History Videos
In order to discover what a restoration of the creek might look like, young people at Project Bridge will study the pre-European environment and culture of the watershed and recreate short vignettes about life in the creek hundreds of years ago. Students will videotape the recreations using broadcast quality equipment. KLRN-TV is interested in broadcasting the shows if they meet the station's standards.Other projects of the Collaboration will include
Mission Espada Neighborhood Project
Mission Espada Virtual Museum plus Living History Videos run out of a computer lab at Villa Coronado under the supervision of Fr. Larry Janczek and Brother Ducanh Pham.. Possible project include a Peace Park and wild life viewing trail along the Mission's Acequia system. Project will grow out of the interaction of Brother Duc with the people of the neighborhood. The project will benefit from an active relationship with Mitchell Lake wildlife Refuge managed by San Antonio Water System in partnership with the Mitchell Wetlands Society, a nonprofit stewardship organization and the participation of Dr. Ruth Lofgren.
Texas Through Time http://textime.org
Wilson County Virtual Museum and Living History Videos facilitated by Tambria Read as a project of the Floresville Independent School District.
Virtual Worlds - recreation of South Texas historic sites as interactive cyber models.
Texas Music - compile and recreate great moments in Texan musical history.