Urban Play and Recreation from Samuel Lee C on Vimeo.

Presentation to a panel of investors, including New York Parks and Recreation, Hester Street Collaborative and additional organizations. Parsons School of Design, School of Design Strategies. Created and presented in participation with Naomi Otsu, Christina D and Katherine O.

Special thanks to Naomi Otsu for the amazing illustrations.



This is one of the projects from the Urban Play and Recreation Studio (Spring 2009). The course was co-taught with Professors Miodrag Mitrasinovic and Eduardo Stazsowski in the Integrated Design Curriculum. I have the pleasure of teaching the next course to be taught in this context this term (Spring 2010). A course description is below (after the jump). More information on the upcoming course will be posted soon.



Design Development - Studying Design for Urban Recreation in the 21st Century

This course will be taught as part of the ongoing partnership with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, Hester Street Collaborative, and Partnership for Parks (see urls below). As in all Design Development courses students will be expected to build on skills and methods acquired in the Design Research Methods course. Likewise, this section will have the same description and pace as other design development section - including team-based and research-driven problem solving. With its focus on urban recreation for the 21st century and affiliation with partner organizations however the course will have some distinct differences that should be considered prior to enrolling.

The section will pay particular attention to participatory design, community-driven design objectives, and the role of civic action and government responsibility as it relates to urban recreation. Students will engage in field activities that will include participating and documenting partner workshops outside of class time with at least 1 day-long workshop that will scheduled during a weekend towards the middle of the semester. The ultimate goal for this course is to use field research, data collection, and information visualization to produce a series of reports that help to define future areas of investigation that will be undertaken by faculty and students at Parsons as well as by our partners in the coming years.

For more information on our partners please review the following:
http://www.nycgovparks.org/
http://www.partnershipforparks.org/
http://www.hesterstreet.org/