Context:

The Blue House was a project to grow a civic design practice organically, rather than start a firm. Along with a team of interdisciplinary designers, I co-founded a collective that fostered civic dialogue, organizing, and local projects. Our team of 10 co-managers worked collaboratively to develop an organizational structure that supported community-based civic projects that explored critical issues and fostered learning and co-creation. The Blue House also operated as a coworking space in order to attract participants and keep the lights on.

Process:

Over the course of six years, we built relationships with locals, community groups, small businesses, nonprofits, public agencies, and neighborhood leaders. The Blue House was a thriving community hub that hosted regular talks, workshops, meetings, art exhibits, and dinners. In the third year of operation, we began formalizing the collective and built an internal structure to manage civic design projects that we worked on collectively, such as the two-part “Mixed Media” project.

• Part 1: Incarceration - issue1.mxd.media

• Part 2: Water Systems - issue2.mxd.media

Outcomes:

For six years, the Blue House was a community of civic-minded people and organizations who shared ideas, values, resources, and expertise, as a means to support and challenge each other to do our most meaningful work. We produced dozens of civic projects and created a spin-off worker co-op to continue and expand this work. In 2020, due to the covid shutdown, the Blue House was forced to close its doors. In our six years, hosted hundreds of events, and connected thousands of people around civic issues, and built many deep community partnerships.