Here's a look at my current (very raw) process in my senior studio, "Design, Place, and Social Innovation".

This studio course is one of the Senior Labs in the Spring semester 2013 in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. The context for the studio was first proposed in October 2012; at that stage guns were an issue in the USA, but nothing like the high profile social phenomenon — in everyone’s context — that they became post the Newtown Shootings, Dec 16, 2012. The topic of guns was secondary at that time we chose to take the class. That changed with the shooting. Guns at that point weren’t just a part of American life, they were a design issue to be explored. As such in this course we are exploring two phenomena :

1. guns and their social meaning and impact;
2. design’s social and material capacity to enable place-based transformation — scaling from the local to national.

Sea Wind Cemetery is a design fiction looking at the issue of overpopulation and the problem with limited burial plots. Artifacts that prove as "evidence" for a possible future were created including an advertisement poster, charter boat ticket and an online new article from the year 2020.

What if in the future the norm was to be buried everywhere else but on land? It's 2012 and we're already running out of burial plots in bigger cities. With overpopulation in places like New York and Beijing, are there solutions to the escalating prices and crammed experience of burial plots?
What if in the future, funerals took on a more celebratory, seamless, and interactive experience? Sea Wind Cemetery cremates the body and adds it to a special, all-natural mixture of concrete that is made into a sculpture. The funeral includes the lowering of the sculpture in the sea as family and friends watch and release the loved one's "sea sculpture" on a charter boat. During this ceremony, families have the option of including Sea Wind Cemetery's state-of-the-art offerings including choreographed appearances of sea otters, dolphins, sea turtles, or whales to make it a truly unforgettable, beautiful experience. Other offerings also include floating fire lanterns and flowers (which are picked from the Sea Wind owned Seaside Garden) to make the time of loss yet a beautiful time of grievance.

Layers of Léger is an exploration of color, visual system, and exhibition experience. Phipps Conservatory located in Pittsburgh, PA served as a fictional client for an exhibition design showcasing the life and works of the French painter, sculpter, and filmmaker, Fernand Léger. Through detailed studies of Léger's color palette, style, mood, and visual elements, we were inspired to incorporate our findings with a modernized and fresh visual system that encouraged the public to learn.

Collaborators: Jisoo Choi

The wooden boxes invite children to interact with them and encourages discovery and learning. Inside each box children will find an event, exhibition, or activity to explore near their neighborhoods. Each box also contains tear-off paper pads with additional information that they can take to their parents. The boxes serve as a tangible and interactive method to encourage children and families open their eyes, breathe in the fresh air, and experience the world around them.