Each year Americans make a very important decision that affects the future of our country. They choose the next career of a certain plastic icon.

As part of the Barbie "I Can Be..." series, several vocations for the doll are suggested to the public, and Mattel asks us to choose which of these wide-ranging careers are most important for girls to emulate. Last year Architect was in the running—alongside Computer Engineer, News Anchor, and Environmentalist—sparking a wave of design-centric support. Architect didn't win the popular vote as the next doll to be produced, but a year later, Mattel announced at the annual Toy Industry Association Toy Fair that Architect Barbie was indeed in the blueprint phase. Later this summer, you'll finally be able to meet (and purchase) Architect Barbie.

Architects are upset because she's wearing too much color. Also, scale models hardly ever come in pink.

There has been much discussion in the design community over the last week about Barbie's sudden ascension into the ranks. Mostly, about how Mattel got it all wrong. Architizer interviewed the handful of female architects who won the AIA's Young Architect Prize about Barbie. They commented, mostly, about her clothes and accessories. Carrying an outdated document tube! Wearing high-heeled boots on a construction site!

I'm not really as concerned about all that—first of all, she's a doll; second, her feet are molded into that permanent tippy-toe, she can only wear heels, people. But I'm honestly interested in the real impact that this doll could have on how many women enter the design field.

You may remember a piece that I wrote last year, "Where My Ladies At?" In it, I uncovered some interesting statistics about the industrial design field. Even though, anecdotally, women make up about half of design students, when it comes to practicing industrial designers, the number of women drops to about 10 to 15 percent. It's slightly better for architects. There's a statement about Architect Barbie at the site of the American Institute of Architects which notes that only 17 percent of their ranks are female. 

Did "I Can Be... Barbie Art Teacher" inspire a wave of design educators? What about "I Can Be... Barbie Pet Sitter"?

Can a doll, especially one as iconic as Barbie, sell young girls on a future career? Mattel thinks so: "Barbie inspires girls to try on different careers, encouraging them to play out their dreams and explore the world and all of its possibilities without ever having to leave home," Mattel spokesperson Michelle Chidoni told the AIA. "We believe role-playing with Barbie leads to real life opportunities, and are very proud to introduce I Can Be...Architect Barbie as our 2011 career of the year."

The two female architects who consulted with Mattel to make Architect Barbie a reality also think she can inspire the next generation of designers. In fact, that's why they launched a ten-year campaign to get Mattel to listen to them.

In 2002, Architect was also on the "I Can Be..." ballot, and from the beginning, University of Buffalo professor Despina Stratigakos, who has devoted a career to studying gender and design, saw the power to raise the profile of female architects. "Barbie is a cultural icon with the power to provoke conversations," she tells me. "We could imagine a conversation at the toy store between a girl and her parents about the roles of women in society today. But we also hope the doll will prompt those in the profession to reflect on issues of identity and image, particularly with regard to exclusions."

Ten years ago, the American public did pick Architect (over Librarian, even!) but Mattel never announced the doll. So Stratigakos mounted an exhibition in 2007 at the University of Michigan where she asked designers and artists to create their own vision of what the doll might look like. The Architect Barbie exhibition even featured a pregnant, "glass ceiling" Barbie.

The 2007 Architect Barbie show was a humorous but skewering look at the role of women in design

When Stratigakos came to Buffalo, she met Kelly Hayes McAlonie, who is associate director of the Capital Planning Group at the University at Buffalo, and who has also worked to raise awareness of women in architecture. She points to the biography she's writing on Louise Bethune, who is likely the first certified female architect in the world. "Despite the fact that Louise Bethune, the first woman architect, practiced 125 years ago, many little girls are not aware of architecture as a profession," says McAlonie. They became united in their goal to create awareness among young women, and agreed that Barbie would be a good way to do it.

In 2010 Stratigakos and McAlonie embarked upon a huge campaign to get Architect Barbie to be victorious in the "I Can Be..." battle royale, even penning a letter to Mattel. To their pleasant surprise, Mattel got in touch with them. "Last July, Mattel contacted us and said it planned to move forward and asked for our help," says Stratigakos. "Working with Mattel's very talented designers, we made suggestions about Architect Barbie's clothing and her accessories." Even though people have fixated on her clothes, Stratigakos defends the need to have elements that borrow from stereotypes as well as ones that buck them. "We wanted Architect Barbie to be both recognizable as an architect, which meant drawing on popular conceptions, and yet also challenge those conventions," she says. "Who said architects can’t wear pink?"

McAlonie says that throughout the process she recruited feedback from what was essentially their client: a friend's daughter, who is now twelve. She wants to be an architect, says McAlonie. "She loves it! She thinks that Architect Barbie will appeal to little girls, which is our goal."

A Barbie from the exhibition by Mashawnta Armstrong explores issues of design and diversity

But McAlonie and Stratigakos agree you can't pin all your hopes on a plastic role model. It's about real-life role models, too. "Kelly and I are also firm believers in introducing children to design early on and expanding the mentoring opportunities for architects," says Stratigakos. "The more role models we have to choose from, the better." 

But role models or not, getting young women to want to become architects is really not the problem, notes Kristine C. Royal, of Architecture Royal, in the Architizer interview: "Do I think this will help attract more young women to the profession? No… The trouble we have is keeping women in the profession and actually converting them to licensed architects." And that's the truth.

While I was writing this today I thought a lot about that. What truly influences what we want to be when we grow up? And what makes us want to stay what we want to be?

I always wanted to be an architect when I was a kid, but I never could figure out exactly what it was that architects did. I drew floorplans for my own dream houses across miles of graph paper. I built extensive, multi-level Lego homes (some for Barbie and her clone-like friends). I read my mom's Architectural Digest, hoping to glean some answers about my chosen vocation, and instead was rewarded with glossy photos of chintzy swag-curtained living rooms and bad ads for carpet. My parents didn't know any architects. I hadn't yet read The Fountainhead. I couldn't see what "being an architect" looked like. 

I never found my design role model, plastic or otherwise. Maybe if I had received an Architect Barbie when I was six, I wouldn't have become a writer.

There are obvious financial benefits, of course, to selling the naming rights so early for a project that has not been approved, for a team that does not exist (the stadium design hasn't even been decided yet). But I think there's another benefit to the name Farmers Field. It's the perfect opportunity for Los Angeles to show its commitment to urban agriculture.

The name Farmers Field is actually incredibly appropriate for L.A. Agriculture is the business that L.A. was built on—the Farmers Insurance company started here in 1928 to provide lower premiums to L.A. farmers and ranchers. Up until the 1950s most of the country's produce was grown right here in Los Angeles County. People moved here with dreams of planting one of the citrus orchards that used to blanket the L.A. basin. The agricultural theme evoking L.A. history can carry through the stadium design with a massive grove of orange trees surrounding the stadium. They can be juiced for pre-game mimosas, provide shade for tailgaters, and help feed hungry downtown residents.

But let's not stop there. Let's use the acres of parking lots surrounding the stadium to build an actual farm in the heart of downtown that would engage the community on more than eight days a year. GOOD just helped to build a school garden about a mile away from the site, which helped to illustrate the need for greenspace for students. Farmers Field could be an agricultural center that serves as a giant community garden for local schools, who can tend plots alongside NFL players, as they learn about health and nutrition.

Farmers Field could also be a place for local farmers to engage with residents. That farmers market which was planned as part of the Staples Center construction but never materialized? It's a natural at Farmers Field, where stalls built to sell produce could be used to sell merchandise during games. And forget sourcing far-flung produce for game-time refreshments: Farmers Field could serve the first 100 percent local menu in the NFL, with detailed information about ingredients and the farmers that produced them. (Although not sure where they'll get the nacho cheese.)

After kickoff, there's the potential power of broadcasting a functioning urban farm into millions of homes each weekend. The televised games would essentially serve as three-hour advertisements for locally-produced food. Wouldn't this shining example of urban agriculture be a great tool for showcasing what's possible for urban agriculture, inspiring cities across the country? Can't you just hear John Madden describing the acres of green, leafy kale?

In the off-season, according to the stadium's plan, the stadium itself will be used for events and conventions, hoping to bring in additional revenue. But a football-field's worth of raised beds could certainly turn a hefty profit, and provide the city with another popular summertime destination for tourists, plus thousands of jobs. Farmers Field could not only be one of the most sustainable stadiums in the country, it could be the Disneyland of urban farming. If you build it, they will come.

Now, about getting that NFL team. Who would play at Farmers Field? It would have to be a farm animal, right? 

Hey! The Los Angeles Rams!

In early November, dozens of designers, activists, and urban leaders convened for The Design Difference, a problem-solving workshop to develop fresh ideas and creative thinking for Brownsville, an underserved urban neighborhood in Brooklyn. 

The Design Difference brought active local community organizers together with attendees from as far away as Tokyo for the two-day event. First we headed to Brownsville where we saw its seemingly-intractable urban problems, but heard loud and clear from residents that "Hope Is Inside." We then met at the Japan Society in Manhattan for a day to brainstorm creative solutions. In this final piece in our series, I'll outline the ideas and show how designers can get involved in their implementation.

Armed with the 27 concepts across six categories like health, food, and retail, Valerie Casey, who led the charrette, met with stakeholders from Common Ground to refine the concepts into five "priority areas." Common Ground has been working on the ground in Brownsville for years, and its founder Rosanne Haggerty, who was named as a 2001 recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Grant, is well-known for her transformative nonprofit and its innovative methods for battling homelessness. 

But these solutions for Brownsville were even broader and more imaginative than she expected. "Many proposals went beyond design as an aesthetic intervention, to design as a way of improving the flow and functioning of community services, and enabling civic participation," she says. "It completely opened our thinking to new ways of making Brownsville safer, healthier and more prosperous."

Five Opportunities for Change

The priority areas will serve as a map for future action, a way of organizing the broad concepts that emerged from the charrette into a series of actionable projects where people can focus their efforts. Here are the five priority areas for Brownsville, as outlined and written by Casey and her team:

1. Branding Brownsville

This concept is perhaps the most difficult and important one to execute. For that reason it should come first. It sets the stage for all the other concepts, involvement, and work. This "branding" is not only a logo but a new identity, language, and strategy that surrounds the community, affecting the way Brownsville is perceived both from the outside and by its own residents. This concept development should use the Brownsville Partnership's slogan "Hope Is Inside" as the launching point for this part of the process. This branding process could culminate in a concert or event to launch the brand.

2. DIY / Community Involvement

This concept centers around trading services and collaborative consumption. It will create a system that encourages residents to swap skills in housing repairs, etc (i.e. shareable.net). These interactions could take place by creating a central hub in the lobbies of the buildings or in other unused community spaces. Potentially incentives could be used to get residents to enroll and participate in the program, ensuring a more successful initiation of the concept, for example, a concept like a "Brownsville Cooks" cookbook.

3. Aesthetic Transformation & Redefining Public Spaces

This concept focuses on creating "welcoming spaces" combined with "community porches" that become destination points for the residents. These spaces may be an update or improvement of the already existing concierge/lobby security room in public housing. This concept embraces the idea of collective efficacy, where trust between Brownsville residents will increase through the act of sharing a space.

4. Encouraging Outdoor Activities

This concept centers around marking the history and existing positive people and features of Brownsville. The creation of walking trails will highlight these features. The trails will promote health, and incorporate (and create) wayfinding and branding. The trails will also increase safety by creating shared, neutral spaces and paths and by populating the outdoor spaces with more people and activity.

5. Economic Development & Bringing Resources to Brownsville

This concept involves creating a market that will create a community of vendors and provide a new retail experience in Brownsville. This could happen daily, weekly, or monthly and may draw more people with music, cheap coffee, food, and other offerings. This could also capitalize on the idea of a "district experience," establishing Brownsville as the place to go for a certain product or service. For example, Brownsville was once famous for selling furniture and tailored suits—can this be revived? The organizational structure or business model of this market could perhaps come from a student competition or through a challenge posed on GOOD.

Since this outline was created, some change is already happening, says Haggerty. "Since the charrette, we've zeroed in on making the assets and spirit of Brownsville more visible—a combination of "branding Brownsville" by getting the "Hope Is Inside" message communicated in all our organizing activities," she says. Brownsville has also started working on the "DIY/Community Involvement" front, says Haggerty. "Our amazing director, Greg Jackson, now organizes groups of young people each Saturday morning for a community clean up," she says. "The young people are proud to do it, and they are getting so much positive feedback from residents."

They're also trying to locate and design a more prominent hub for the Brownsville Partnership's activities. "We are looking for a space that can embody some of the excitement of Brownsville, and our comprehensive effort to make it a stronger, healthier community," she says, one that's closer to the housing projects, and has more of those "welcoming spaces" that are so needed.

How You Can Take Action

With the five priority areas laid out, the charrette has now moved into its most important phase: Engaging the design community in these solution areas. "We will need help in refining the ideas and figuring out how to implement them for little or no cost," says Haggerty. "That will certainly mean enlisting designers to contribute their talents, suppliers to contribute materials, and lots of people to contribute their time and concern in building up this special neighborhood." Common Ground is looking for creative input from designers and architects who can craft specific design responses to the charrette's findings. Here's how you can help:

If you're a design firm and you want to contribute pro bono work for Brownsville, register with The 1% and send an email to designdifference[at]japansociety[dot]org with the subject line Design Firm alerting our team that you're ready to be matched with a Brownsville client.

If you're a designer or architect and you want to submit a design proposal for one of the five priority areas, send an email to designdifference[at]japansociety[dot]org with the subject Design Proposal and include a brief summary of your idea for Brownsville, as well as a link to your work.

If you'd like to volunteer or if you have resources to donate for an upcoming workday to help implement one of the ideas, send an email to designdifference[at]japansociety[dot]org with the subject Volunteer and you'll be added to a future email list with more information about how you can get involved.

And if you're interested in holding a similar workshop for a community near you, the entire charrette process engineered by Valerie Casey, from the schedule to various worksheets, has been made publicly available. (In fact, the charrette format itself has already been used by one of the participants, R. Streitmatter-Tran, who adapted the Brownsville model to an exercise for his design students in Vietnam.) For more background, you can also read about our research trip to Brownsville, see photos of the charrette, and download the charrette materials yourself: Here's the Workshop Outline (PDF), the Brainstorming Map (PDF), and the Concept Worksheet (PDF).

Thanks again to the Japan Society for inviting GOOD to be a part of such a interesting experiment. And a very special thanks to Ayumi Sakamoto for her beautiful photos of the process. We'll be following this story, and what we hope are many exciting developments for the residents of Brownsville.

Photos by Ayumi Sakamoto

Design is a process made for solving problems. Yet in the last few years, that process has come under fire when designers have attempted to solve problems that have little to do with their own experience. Last year, Bruce Nussbaum stoked a vicious debate when he wondered if designers working to solve problems in developing nations might be part of a new breed of imperialism. And it's happening right here at home, too. In 2007, I covered Project M, a group of designers working to bring clean water to rural Alabama, where a third of the population lives in poverty. The program was successful in the sense that it raised money, yet the group of outsiders were criticized by angry local residents and, as a New York Times article outlines, some efforts were not well-received by the community itself.

This idea of "parachuting in," or the effectiveness of designers working outside of their own cultures, was part of what The Design Difference charrette hoped to examine. By concepting ideas for Brownsville, Brooklyn, one of New York's most underserved communities, the group's leaders also hoped to understand how using design as a tool for problem-solving had evolved. 

"Designers used to rely on their methodologies and tools to create empathy, but as an industry, we've reached the limits of just imagining the situations of others," says Valerie Casey, founder of the Designers Accord, who organized The Design Difference. "This charrette is part of an ongoing exploration into how we might get better at using our craft in more purposeful and relevant ways."

To help, Casey enlisted John Peterson, founder of Public Architecture and The 1%, an initiative that asks design firms to donate one percent of their annual billings to pro bono projects. In Peterson's experience of seeing hundreds of firms working for marginalized communities, the mistakes made from parachuting in are less about designing outside one's cultural framework and more about not having the necessary team in place to do effective work. In Brownsville, our local connections were built-in. "We chose to work closely with an informed and deeply-embedded client," says Peterson. "Greg Jackson and Common Ground were the conduits into the Brownsville culture, which was unfamiliar to the most of the design team."

In addition to Jackson, the organizers were careful to bring together an extremely diverse group of designers and non-designers, ranging from residents of Brownsville who could offer the most personal accounts of what has worked in the past, to Japanese residents who might be able to bring an outside perspective from another culture. Five countries were represented, with live translation bridging any language barriers. "I think the two critical aspects of this charrette was that each participant had direct experience working with community of need, so there was a great sense of humility to balance the optimism," says Casey. "In addition, each participant knew that this event was part of a longer journey and conversation."

Human-Centered Design

After an immersion day spent in Brownsville, meeting residents and activists, the group gathered at the Japan Society's headquarters in Manhattan for a full day. We were divided into small groups of about eight participants, and listened as Casey reviewed the insight we had gained through our conversations and observations the day before. I remembered the stories from Jackson and other residents about shootings and vandalism and began to feel a sense of despair. How could design honestly help with Brownsville's larger, complex societal issues of poverty, violence, and drug use? 

My reaction wasn't unusual, says Casey. "When faced with the abstract and seemly intractable issues around sustainability, designers often ask for specific direction about what they can do," she says. The goal for the charrette, she says, is to provide an entry point to a very real, basic needs where designers could contribute constructively.

Casey encouraged the group to step back from such specific problems and focus on two strengths of the design process: human-centered design, which caters to the needs of the user; and systemic thinking, which looks at solutions within a larger context. Both would prevent myopic investigation of data-driven facts like drugs and violence, and focus on the larger, people-driven conditions that could make Brownsville a better place to live. Therefore, we would focus on larger issues of improving food, health, and housing, rather than "stopping crime."

Also crucial was the fact that not all solutions would be equally-weighted when it came to implementation—some would take longer than others. So Casey created a grid where the larger categories (food, housing, environment, transportation, health, retail,) were paired with various timelines (three weeks, three months, one year), and assigned to each group. So while one group was concepting solutions for improving health that could be implemented in three months, another group was thinking up ideas for housing solutions that could be implemented in three weeks.

The timeframes gave great guidance for narrowing lofty ideas into what would be possible to achieve. Each group was given about 30 minutes in which to tackle a specific combination, then we'd be asked to switch to another assigned category and timeframe. This prevented potential burnout from banging our heads against the same problem all day.

The format of the brainstorming, or ideation, exercises moved from an unedited, uncensored burst of ideas (divergent thinking), into more actionable, physically-oriented solutions (convergent thinking). Each group began the brainstorming period by layering a page with quick ideas—or pieces of ideas—jotted on Post-its. Over time, common themes or similar trains of thought were grouped together and built upon, and the best three to five ideas were drafted into more specific concepts. 

Turning Ideas Into Action

This cascade of ideas, not a prescriptive mandate of what Brownsville must do, showed that the group was sensitive to the fact that there was not one single solution, says Peterson. "There was no conclusion, which would have been an unrealistic goal in my opinion," he says. "The abundance of actionable solutions offered fresh insights to the people on the ground and didn't try to suggest that there was a quick or simple solution." To further clarify our thinking and turn those ideas into solid, action-based initiatives, we were asked to draw our concepts, or make a quick-and-dirty prototype of what this idea would look like out in the world. We were also asked to list the desired outcomes, and how those outcomes might be measured.

But perhaps the most important part of the charrette was a built-in dedication to follow through that might manage to transcend the pitfalls designers face when working in underserved communities and developing nations. Instead of creating a series of fanciful computerized renderings, or grand ideas that needed funding, we created simple but detailed, visually-based initiatives that built upon the work of our established contacts at Brownsville Partnership and Common Ground. "Our instant gratification culture, which is largely manufactured by design, was shifted in this charrette," says Casey. "We were able to deeply understand the years of effort by the Brownsville Partnership, and could see how this charrette is part of a process, not its end point."

In many ways, the charrette highlighted the way that designers have shifted from creating things to creating ideas, which Casey has also seen through the Designers Accord's work. "Three years ago we focused on evolving our design practices by applying the principles of sustainability to the objects we were creating," says Casey. "Now we are applying our craft to create the kind of content and change in a way that supersedes 'design,' and is utterly more connected with society at large."

At the end of the day, we posted our concepts around the room, marveling at the range and diversity of ideas. Some of the same objectives had a dozen different ways to achieve them listed beneath. Some of the concepts were the same, but had completely different goals. Casey then went through and organized the concepts thematically, from transportation ideas to crowdsourcing projects. At the end of the day, the group had hundreds of ideas grouped into 27 concepts for Brownsville and five major themes. Each of the participants voted for their favorite ideas, which would then be consolidated and streamlined by Casey and Common Ground into actionable initiatives for Brownsville.

Thanks to Valerie Casey and the Japan Society, you can download the all the charrette tools here to organize your own problem-solving workshop: Here's the Workshop Outline (PDF), the Brainstorming Map (PDF), and the Concept Worksheet (PDF).

In part three, we'll see the concepts that were prototyped for Brownsville and give you more information about how you can lend your time and services to the initiatives.

Read all three stories in the series here.

Photos by Ayumi Sakamoto

As I ride a bus through the neighborhood of Brownsville in Brooklyn two days after Halloween, I see ghosts. The location of a once-thriving famous pickle factory. The abandoned steel plant laced with razor wire. An empty main street that once was filled with bustling furniture stores.

As part of a group of thinkers gathered for a charrette to focus on one of New York’s most underserved communities, we hear plenty from our tour guide about a phantom neighborhood of front stoops, street ball, and a vibrant Jewish community that lived here in the early 1900s. What we see is Brownsville’s reality of broken windows and vacant buildings.

The bus stops outside what looks like an unremarkable building, a low-slung concrete-covered complex. Just stepping inside we know this place is different. The warm air is humidified by a large public pool. A hallway is draped with vivid murals made to look like an Egyptian tomb. Visitors are greeted by a slow-moving iguana named Juliet. And the most remarkable part: There are people here, lots of people here, perhaps more people than we’ve seen during our entire 30-minute tour. This is the Brownsville Recreation Center, and it is the heart of the community.

At the rec center, we have lunch in a surreal setting—a theater still dripping with blood and gore from the annual haunted house—and meet Greg Jackson. The unofficial mayor of Brownsville, Jackson is a towering figure with a cheerful face, and he seems to know just about everyone in the neighborhood.

For Jackson, the vacant streets we saw on the bus ride in aren't the status quo. The rooms around us echoing with pick-up basketball games, the clatter of ping pong practice, the clang of weights—these are the Brownsville reality. "I say, the rec center is 'normal,'" he says, smiling. "Here, we can dream it."

As the executive director of the Brownsville Partnership, a pioneering homelessness prevention and community development program, dreaming is a big part of Jackson’s job. In a telling moment, he points to the storefronts that used to be the center of the community. Back when he grew up, he says, his family spent Sunday afternoons walking the business district, window shopping.

"Daydreaming," Jackson calls this action, something which he thinks is critically important for the neighborhood. That's what's missing for the residents: that public imagination, the feeling of possibility, an idea of what could be. We were here as part of an event called The Design Difference to help find out how we might be able to help Brownsville dream again.

A Tool For Change

The Design Difference was organized by the Japan Society in New York in partnership with Common Ground, the Designers Accord, and GOOD. It's the latest project of the Japan Society’s Innovators Network, which hopes to champion social change in a way that broadens and strengthens the dialogue between Japan and the U.S. Betty Borden, the Japan Society's director of policy projects, says that the goal of the Innovators Network is to address global issues, like sustainability and urbanization, with local solution. "We want to look at what people are doing at the community level," she says. "We're very interested in how communities have transformed and are transforming themselves." In that way, the Society brings together innovators who can cultivate fresh thinking and new approaches to hard-to-solve challenges.

A “hard-to-solve challenge” might be a way of describing Brownsville. According to a Reuters story published earlier this year, Brownsville remains the most violent neighborhood in New York City with a 50 percent increase in gun violence last year—even as the rest of the city has seen a trend towards lower crime. Only a third of the population has graduated from high school, and the median household income in 2008 was estimated at $17,967—far below the poverty line. Drug trade pervades the landscape, and many of the male residents have already been to jail.

From an outsider’s perspective, it feels like Brownsville’s ills can be attributed to a single physical flaw: Only one square mile in size, Brownsville is home to the city's highest concentration of public housing. Most of the residents are stuffed into the familiar high-rise projects that make up over a third of the housing stock, yet the neighborhood itself is underpopulated, with vacant storefronts and empty apartments lining the streets.

But it quickly becomes apparent that the neighborhood is full of these contradictions. There's no sit-down restaurant, but plenty of fast food (New York's best selling Popeye's is in Brownsville); only two banks, yet dozens of check-cashing centers.

"Hope Is Inside"

Since 2005, Brownsville has been aided by Common Ground, a legendary, international organization which works to end homelessness. Common Ground established the Brownsville Partnership as a unique collaboration between the neighborhood and the New York City Housing Authority. It's a revolutionary model, one that transcends disciplines or categorization. And it works because both groups are committed to transforming the physical environment. Besides working as a liaison to improve the conditions that create homelessness, Common Ground has helped to fund two affordable housing structures which are currently under construction.

In the most symbolic moment of Jackson's introduction at the rec center, he holds up a long vinyl banner with Rosanne Haggerty, the executive director of Common Ground, and speaks about their partnership. He quotes the banner often, as three words that have become a slogan for the community. These are the words he envisions will be printed on signs and T-shirts throughout the community: "Hope is inside."

In our subsequent tour of Brownsville, we do see hope inside. In one of the original Carnegie libraries, we view a massive museum collection focused on Brownsville and black history. It is the ultimate crowdsourcing project, with all objects coming from members of the community.

We tour a unit inside a housing project, and meet a resident who works a few hours at the security desk downstairs to keep her building safe. And we meet dozens of residents who greet us enthusiastically when they hear why we've come to their neighborhood.

And—in what's perhaps the most captivating moment for the participants—we walk into a shiny new grocery store filled with pyramids of fresh produce, slick whole fish on ice, and technicolor towers of canned goods stacked to the ceiling.

We learn that this isn't the only new place to buy produce: In the summer there's now a greenmarket, staffed by local teens. We marvel, speechless, at the triumph of bringing fresh, affordable food to the neighborhood.

As we boarded the bus, Brownsville's challenges seem as insurmountable as that tower of cans. But what as we drove away, it occurred to me that my hometown, Los Angeles, doesn't look that much different. What's happening in Brownsville is happening where I live, too. In this economy, any city in the country is only a plant-closing or a crime spree or a natural disaster away from collapse.

Solutions tested in this community could be replicated anywhere if they work. The question now became, how could design make a difference? And how could we—outsiders, with only a tenuous connection to the neighborhood—help in a way that was meaningful?

In parts two and three, we'll look at how design can be employed to create solutions for communities like Brownsville, walk through the charrette process, and even pass along the workshop tools for you to use.

Read all three stories in the series here.

Photos by Ayumi Sakamoto

On Saturday morning, Arizona Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot along with at least a dozen other people, six of whom were killed, during a neighborhood meet-and-greet at a Tucson supermarket, according to various still-developing reports. The suspect, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, is in custody and while Loughner's YouTube videos are disturbing, his motive is not yet known. Nonetheless, political pundits are using the opportunity to call attention to this map created by Sarah Palin's political action committee called Take Back the 20.

When the site was launched to fight the health-care reform bill, Palin suffered criticism for choosing to use crosshairs to pinpoint the 20 districts she hoped would be won back by Republicans in the midterm elections. Giffords was one of the representatives running for re-election who was marked by Palin's map crosshairs, and Palin endorsed her challenger, Jesse Kelly. According to an interview on MSNBC, Giffords herself had expressed concern about the map and what she perceived to be a reference to violence.

Palin's map doesn't seem to be the only example of inferred gun violence directed at Giffords. A Daily Kos commenter reports another disturbing set of images from the campaign of Giffords's opponent in the last Congressional race. A rally for Kelly featured an event where supporters could shoot M16s with the candidate at a rifle range. It includes the words "get on target" and the unfortunate message "help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office." 

Giffords had also been the victim of vandalism due to her support of health-care reform. According to The New York Times, the windows of Giffords's Tucson office were either broken or shot out immediately after the bill passed in the House.

Rebecca Mansour, who works on Palin's PAC team, appeared on a radio talk show Saturday and told the story behind the map's design. She said the graphic was contracted out to a "political graphics professional" and called the crosshairs a surveyor's symbol. "We never, ever, ever intended it to be gun sights," she said. 

The crosshair, or reticle, is used in any telescopic device, from a microscope to a camera. In mapping iconography it can signify the view seen through surveyors' equipment. It is found in astronomy, and in interface design, like in graphics software like Photoshop and on older versions of the iPhone Google Maps application.

According to this diagram of reticles in a Wikipedia article, some of the same crosshair designs can be used for both surveying equipment and rifles, since they're both concerned with measuring distance, or rangefinding.

As a counterpoint to the debate, some bloggers are pointing to a map found on the Democrat Leadership Committee's site that used targets to signify states which Democrats should focus on winning after the 2004 election. 

Targets and crosshairs are no strangers to political debate. Over at The Daily Beast, Howard Kurtz has posted a thoughtful piece noting that even if Palin saw her symbols as bullseyes, as she called them in a now-famous Tweet, military terminology and symbols like "targets" and "battlegrounds" have always been used in political campaigns. But should it be the norm? At The New York Times, Matt Bai explores that topic further, and what he thinks is increasingly-careless language and symbolism that surrounds political discourse.

With the heightened debate about the map came a call for both sides to curb inflammatory rhetoric, as noted by Slate's Jack Shafer. At a press conference on Saturday, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik specifically mentioned "the anger, the hatred" that pervades American politics: "When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government." Dupnik, who famously refused to enforce Arizona's immigration law, said that Arizona had "become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

And there may be some real legal repercussions for designers who create this imagery in the future. According to a post at The New York Times's The Caucus blog, Pennsylvania Representative Bob Brady said he wants to introduce a bill that would ban incendiary symbols like crosshairs from campaign graphics. "This is a major alarm going off," he said. "We need to tone down this rhetoric."

A popular Tweet from Brian Frank that was posted Sunday added some perspective:  "I want to reiterate this: if politicians deny their negative rhetoric can cause harm, what are we to think of their positive rhetoric?"

This article was updated on Sunday, January 9 to incorporate developing news.

And then there's OK Go, the band that's arguably the most innovative video-makers currently working in the medium. They don't need to resort to outrageous stunts because OK Go's whole body of work is itself one-long running stunt: A world where dogs, treadmills and Rube Goldberg-machines make cameos in a cohesive narrative that feels like a single, triumphant take. Their latest video, for the song "Back From Kathmandu," takes OK Go's honest, handcrafted creativity and wraps it into urban engagement with an interactive project they call Dance Through the City.

The band mapped out a route that spelled out "OK GO" on L.A. streets and corralled 100 of their friends to march with them as they performed the song on a sunny day in November. As day turned to night, they donned bike lights and strapped glowsticks to their instruments. (Funnily enough, I saw this happening in-person and while I thought it looked interesting, I dismissed it as a film school project. Everyone just looked a little too genuinely happy to be there.)

The video is entertaining enough in its zany Muppet-esque way, but here's the cool part: OK Go is asking its fans to make their own "GPS art," as they call it: Map out a route and make your own video, and it might be included in a future compilation video. Of course, there is a bit of a disclaimer here. The project was sponsored by Range Rover to promote its new product Evoque, a GPS app that tracks and maps urban movement. OK Go used the Evoque app to make their video, and they want you to use it, too. (But hey, at least Range Rover isn't asking you to drive the route.)

Where most music video concepts feel like bad reality shows, OK Go's videos are more like a creative brief. The members clearly set out to solve a design challenge—Can we dance on treadmills? Can we build a massive machine from reclaimed materials?—and this time they're letting their enthusiastic audience play along.

There's newspaper currently plastering the windows at the New Museum in New York City, but it's not papering over the preparations for an upcoming show—it's actually part of the exhibition inside. A new publication called the New City Reader is being produced as part of a show called The Last Newspaper, an exhibition that focuses on the way that artists interpret and remix the news. And an editorial team consisting of Joseph Grima, Kazys Varnelis, and Alan Rapp are working as artists-in-residence—or maybe journalists-in-residence?—inside the museum, to produce this weekly newspaper about public space.

Creative use of newspaper is actually seeing a renaissance—I wrote a piece last year about the efforts of groups like the Newspaper Club that are trying to reactivate the traditional medium. But despite the ominous name of the exhibition, the purpose of the New City Reader is not bemoaning the death of print, says Rapp. "The main ideas that Joseph Grima and Kazys Varnelis wanted to explore with this project are the intersections of urban space, public space, and information space," he says. "The newspaper traditionally has been where the city meets information flows, and papers both projected a city's identity out to the world and held a mirror up to its citizenry."

So each week, a different section of a traditional paper becomes an entire issue in itself, with everything from editorial meetings to graphic design (by Neil Donnelly and Chris Rypkema) to production to even some interviews happening within an "installation" at the museum. The first issue, focused on City, looked at urbanism through the frame of New York's 1977 blackout, which left the city reeling from riots and vandalism. The Sports section was just published as baseball season ended, with an examination of how sport shapes a city, and the way cultures interpret sport-related information. Right now Rapp and his team is hard at work on the Leisure section, where he's awaiting a particularly interesting assignment from a freelancer, he says. "Apparently they convinced a number of significant architects to open up their  refrigerators and take a picture."

While New City Reader is a way to show how information can be produced, it's also an experiment in how it can be disseminated. Back in 19th century New York, says Rapp, newspapers were posted publicly, a practice that's still seen in many parts of the world. "We also wanted to revive the idea of the newspaper as a poster, or broadside—a document that is posted in public space for a collective reading experience, not just solitary reading in private." In a sense, they've activated the exterior of the museum by turning it into a cross between a well-written design blog and a well-curated bulletin board.

Those who are intrigued enough to enter the museum itself will be rewarded with this hybrid of journalism and performance art: watching the editorial team heads-down, hard at work. "Anyone is welcome to talk to us, and we end up explaining the project to all sorts of people from around the world, which is usually a very good experience," says Rapp. "It at least changes the traditional dynamic of the museum, which is still such a highly controlled space. But most people don't really know whether they are allowed to talk to us, and we get puzzled looks."

You can zoom in over at NewCityReader.net and read the last three issues. Or, if you're in New York, you can see the most recent issue across the museum or on front of the Storefront for Art and Architecture. Or stop by the museum to grab your hard copy and see the team at work, where you'll be rewarded by one of the most interactive experiences of the project: a Hermes Rocket typewriter where visitors can peck out letters to the editor, some of which will find their way into future issues. "People write some pretty funny stuff," says Rapp. "Though hardly anybody knows how to hit a strong manual keystroke, and even though the machine is in bad need of a new ribbon, for whatever reason, people love the typewriter."

Almost a year later, the resulting project, an intergenerational garden that connects Serviam Gardens with an adjacent all-girls Catholic school, is nearing reality. The designers spent months working closely with the stakeholders, who contributed ideas like a walking track and what kind of produce to grow in the terraced vegetable garden. "We met with residents and had prepared a questionnaire to help us understand what they wanted from the garden," says Mahon, who still continues to come up with new features based on their feedback. "On my last trip to the site I got to walk around the new plantings with one of the residents and identify the plants and explain why we had chosen them. We both agreed on the need for a guide to all the plant material." Images of the planned garden now hang in the building's entrance, providing a source of buzz for residents moving in who can't wait for spring.

Serviam Gardens is one of 12 projects launched by desigNYC earlier this year: In fact, at last December's GOOD Design NYC event, desigNYC acting director Michelle Mullineaux gave one of the first presentations announcing the program. Since then the site has been busy publishing regular updates and producing a dozen videos on each of the 12 projects submitted by nonprofits, ranging from new lighting and landscaping for upper Broadway, to a healthy eating program for the neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, to a guide that helps residents understand how to reduce energy consumption.

Enterprise Community Partners actually submitted multiple challenges and participated in two more projects in addition to Serviam Gardens: A children's playroom designed by the James Beard-winning architect Andre Kikoski and a redesign of the public spaces (above) by Sohbr Studio in a housing development for residents living with HIV and AIDS. Hernandez says she thinks Enterprise's work was picked because they were able to provide projects where design professionals could make a meaningful and long-lasting impact on people. "Nonprofits like Enterprise have unique design challenges that intrigue designers, but do not have the resources to solve them," she says. "By bringing the non-profit and design partners together, desigNYC has been filling a role that no other organization is filling." She estimates that Mahon and his team have donated about 400 hours, or $70,000 worth of services.

But this kind of dedication might be an anomaly:  A quick survey of some of the desigNYC designers reveals that it was the economic downturn which provided them with so much extra time. These sentiments were best echoed by illustrator Felix Sockwell, who, with Tom Vasquez, created a new identity for the Bronx River Alliance, which is working to restore the Bronx River. "I wish I could avoid doing so much free work but it's been slow lately," he says, noting there's never a shortage of pro bono projects. And he's not certain about the idea that pro bono work leads to paying gigs, which many designers see as a nice side effect of doing work for good. Still, he was pleased with the process and was happy to use the time for something that works towards a larger goal. "I hope the work gains some traction and serves a useful tool in shaping their worthy objectives."

For some of the desigNYC projects, the objectives are more elusive and might be more difficult to determine success. Marcy Rye is owner and president of WireMedia, who contributed an identity and website for Nostrand Park, a type of virtual town square for the Brooklyn community of Crown Heights, and her team had to navigate some sticky local politics. "In the case of Crown Heights, a very unfortunate car accident put a rift between its two largest populations," says Rye. "Nostrand Park is starting to put that right. And by healing this one community, they set an example for surrounding communities, and challenge them to bring their people closer, too." But can an identity and new website truly repair such a painful rift in a community full of complex issues?

Most of desigNYC's projects are nearing this stage of completion, which means the real work is just beginning. As ribbons are cut and logos implemented, the impact of many of these concepts still have yet to be seen, as issues like maintenance and community acceptance come into play. But for designers like Mahon, desigNYC is unique in the camaraderie it has created between pro bono clients, stakeholders, and other designers, meaning that the design teams are more personally invested for the long haul. "What desigNYC has done is opened us up to both a new group of people and a new design challenge," says Mahon. "We have developed a strong relationship with the team that we are working with on the project and with the greater desigNYC family."

For designers and nonprofits looking to get involved, the deadline has just been extended: The application process closes Friday, November 12 at 5:00 p.m. EST.

Sobhr Studio rendering by ProViz

You know what they say about designers: They love solving problems. And in San Francisco, they love solving them so much that GOOD was invited back for a second event in which designers attempt to solve the city's problems.

After a successful GOOD Design SF in 2009, we were delighted to return for the second incarnation of GOOD Design Bay Area. Six design teams from the region were matched with government and urban leaders, who proposed six very different challenges. The designers were then given several weeks to come up with solutions, which they presented to more than 200 attendees. It was a fantastic night full of energetic questions, and was a fitting end to San Francisco's month-long, city-wide Architecture and the City festival.

Without further delay, here are some of the solutions these brilliant designer-client teams created together.

Our first challenge was submitted by Lisa Frazier, President/CEO of The Bay Citizen, a fantastic new independent publication. She wondered what the role of the public square was in the post-digital city. How do we increase civic engagement when we don't always engage with our neighbors? There were perhaps no better designers to tackle this issue than Ben Barry and Lee Byron, who are both great graphic designers who currently work at Facebook. Barry and Byron looked at the traditional billboard as an important physical way to see announcements, posting and other information, but wanted to find a way to integrate that with our "virtual billboards," including—of course—Facebook.

Barry and Byron proposed a system of cross-media billboards that could work in analog as well as digitally. A person could post a flyer physically on the board, but also use a scanner with text recognition that could share the information on digital screens, or upload the information to places like Facebook. The kiosks or walls would then become landmarks in the community which people would locate in real life, but if they wanted to visit them more frequently they could "Like" them to follow updates online. This creates both a hyper-local source of news, and also a way to get a pulse on what a community is thinking—both things that the disappearance of local publications have not been able to replicate.

Molly Sterkel of the California Public Utilities Commission presented our second challenge: How to get more Bay Area residents to install solar water heaters on their homes. Even though some homeowners know it was better for the planet and that it might be able to save them money, most people are doubtful that the sun, especially in San Francisco, could actually heat up their water sufficiently. So Kate Lydon and Anton Willis of Civil Twilight focused at the skepticism from homeowners and design solutions that could prove to them that it does indeed work with the campaign "Go Solar." They created "hot spots" throughout San Francisco where solar heaters could provide unique and memorable experiences using hot water. And of course the most prime locations were the chilly beaches on the western side of the city, where solar-powered showers could provide warm post-surf showers.

Lydon and Willis proposed other experiences, like warm-water fountains for children to play in, and pop-up cafes that could be set up in urban areas to show people that, indeed, San Francisco could produce warm, even hot, water from the sun. To the great delight of everyone in attendance, Lydon and Willis presented a concept for "Go Solar"-branded tea bags, which would be given away at the cafes. Coincidentally, a new pilot program was launched in the city where some homeowners were given free solar water heaters and it just so happened that Lydon and Willis were part of the program. It was meant to be.

The issue of density was proposed by a team from development company Forest City, Alexa Arena and Shannon Loew. We all know that density is good for us in an urban sense: It keeps services and people close together, preventing traffic and sprawl. But for many people in cities, especially in San Francisco, the addition of more density is still seen negatively. Forest City wanted to see density reframed as a channel for urban good. Larissa Sand of Sand Studios first examined our deep-seated fears about density, stemming from dystopic views of the future in films like Metropolis (above) and The Fifth Element. The real issue, Sand said, was the sense of height: People didn't like the tall buildings that blocked their view and created shade. So she proposed redesigning the spaces between tall buildings to give people more reasons to look up.

By paying special attention to the alleyways and surfaces between the buildings, people would find themselves exploring the buildings and experiencing their height instead of hating it. Sand called for skyways and balconies that would zig zag high up onto the buildings, creating patterns that would shift and change based on where people were located on the street. These would also help frame the sky in ways that would be almost artful. Perhaps most importantly, said Sand, the balconies should be filled with public gardens and terraces that help to assert height as a "green" action. People would be drawn up and into the buildings to experience the beauty of density.

Nader Shabahangi, President & CEO of Agesong opened his challenge with a lovely poem by Mary Oliver about forgetting. Shabahangi's organization deals with the issues around aging, namely the fact that our population is getting older and older (1 in 5 Americans will be over 65 in the year 2030). Landscape designer Sarah Kuehl of Peter Walker & Partners was charged with creating a forgetfulness-friendly city where our increasingly senior population can live more safely and happily. Kuehl spent some time with residents of a retirement home and realized that elders are some of the most civic-minded residents in a city: They often give up their cars and walk everywhere. So it was the pedestrian experience, especially around retirement homes, that needed to be repaired.

Kuehl looked at powerful public spaces for walking like the High Line in New York, which, although they provide great places for people to slow down and reflect upon the process of aging, require a tremendous amount of work. So she proposed a concept called Nurture, an elite force who would be dispatched around the city to help provide maintenance for these green spaces. These volunteers would provide services like horticulture and landscape to keep spaces safe, clean and beautiful for resting and reflection. But they would also stand in as crossing-guards and offer forgetfulness care, should someone need assistance. And due to their dual roles, seniors wouldn't be intimidated or ashamed to ask for help.

Kevin Connolly of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority had a very interesting challenge that may surprise you: progressive Silicon Valley has some of the lowest public transit ridership rates in the country. Josh To and Dru Truong presented the work of Brute Labs, who tackled the challenge by looking at it from both a business and environmental angle. They looked for the group with the highest opportunity for growth, and that's definitely the business and college commuters who currently drive to their jobs at places like Google and Adobe. Their plan is to get these people on the bus with tech-friendly touches and a message that would help show them riding the bus can actually be a luxury.

First, Brute Labs suggested rerouting the buses into a hub and spoke model that was more oriented to where the commuters wanted to go. This would get people closer to their destinations quicker and allow them to bike the shorter final distance. They also suggested tapping the brain trust of the area to evaluate routes and change them often according to collected data. But the second change was more behavioral: They realized that while those business commuters know the environmental benefits as well as the fact that taking the bus could free up some extra time, they're also affluent people who would happily pay for additional services. So Brute Labs proposed a concierge for bus riders, who could use dry cleaning and postal services, and personal touches like reserved seating, wi-fi, and gourmet snacks so the tech-savvy folks wouldn't feel like they were slumming it.

Madelyn Mackie, Director of Disaster Services at the American Red Cross, began outlining her challenge by asking how many people in the audience had a disaster-relief kit at home. Most people in the audience did not raise their hands, and therein lies the problem. Brian Singer of Altitude looked at how to better connect residents with disaster relief when the big one hits (or, alternatively, as he noted, for a zombie attack). The Red Cross handles it now by placing trailers and storage units with supplies strategically around the city. However, these can only service 100 people in the first 72 hours, which is not enough for the city, especially in high-density areas.

First, Singer wanted to make more trailers more visible, even in times of non-disaster, perhaps by permanently sitting in school parking lots. When disaster strikes, a balloon could be deployed that would allow relief stations to become more visible to someone on the ground. Smaller emergency pods, which could help provide basic needs to people stranded in urban areas, could be stashed in advertising kiosks, bus shelters and park infrastructure, along with signage and other information about what to do. Pods could also be placed in apartment buildings—Singer proposed a white bin like the blue ones for recycling—and owners could be incentivized to stock them. Finally Singer proposed a massive campaign that would play out on paper grocery bags, reminding homeowners to stock up, but also providing detailed directions on what to do that they could keep handy.

At the close of the program, I was excited to announce that we're launching our next GOOD Design school program in partnership with the MFA graphic design school at the Academy of Art University, right down the street in San Francisco. That will be starting up in the spring, so watch here for updates from talented students. Finally a big thanks to everyone who invited us back! We were thrilled to once again be hosted by SPUR and AIA SF, who sure know how to gather an engaged audience who knows how to ask smart questions. And they also know how to throw one heck of an after-party. Thank you to all the designers and leaders who were involved, and we'll see you at the next GOOD Design!

GOOD Design pairs designers with city problems proposed by urban leaders, and showcases the solutions at lively public forums. Events have been held in Los Angeles, San Francisco (twice!), New York, at the annual conference of CEOs for Cities, and with Art Center College of Design and Ringling College of Art and Design. If you'd like to bring GOOD Design to your city or school, let us know!

The Glass House is possibly one of the most famous houses on the planet. The modernist landmark nestled into the forest of New Canaan, Connecticut was the home of architect Philip Johnson and contains, as one would expect, lots of glass, and lots of class. But it was also the home to years of legendary salons, where Johnson and his collaborators would convene big names in art, design and culture to chew over the issues of the day.

Johnson died in 2005, and the house was turned over to National Trust for Historic Preservation, who opened it to the public in 2007. A series of salons started back up at the house. And now, the recently-launched Glass House Conversations is a way to bring those salons to an even wider audience. Over the past few weeks, dozens of writers, designers and thinkers have been invited to pose a question to the audience, who can join in the discussion for five days. The host then chooses one comment as the "final word" on the subject.

This week, I'm hosting the discussion and I'd love for GOOD readers to chime in. Here's the question I posed:

In some large U.S. metropolitan areas like New York City, public transit is the norm and bike-riding is on the rise thanks to proactive efforts by city agencies. But in most of the country, public and alternative transportation options either don't exist, or, if they do, there is often a stigma attached to using them.

With goals of relieving traffic congestion, making our citizens healthier, and preventing ecological disaster, how can we encourage municipalities and individuals to commit to buses, trains and bikes? What would make you give up your car?

It's easy to register and join the discussion, so if you feel inspired I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'd especially love to hear from some folks out there who have cars—what would it take to get you out of them? Then stay tuned this Friday to see who has the final word.

Not in real life, of course, but on film, yes. From Blade Runner to The Big Lebowski to pretty much every Bond movie (and any Austin Powers movie for that matter), the bad guys are guaranteed to inhabit cold, modern boxes. Evil People in Modernist Homes in Popular Films by Ben Critton combines information about the modern houses that fictional characters have resided in with essays about the films they were represented in.

Looking at the villains of eight films—The Damned Don’t Cry (1950), Diamonds are Forever (1971), Blade Runner (1982), Body Double (1984), Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), L.A. Confidential (1997), The Big Lebowski (1998), and Twilight (2008)—the tabloid-sized piece also examines exactly why modernism is so maligned in popular culture. But even if they're used for plotting to end the world they're sure pretty: If you want to actually get a peek of one of those lairs, simply Google the address, provided for each home. You can buy the zine at Printed Matter.

As this review notes, the topic has been explored extensively, namely in Thom Anderson's landmark documentary about Los Angeles being featured on film, Los Angeles Plays Itself. This clip will make you think twice about trusting anyone who lives in a midcentury modern home.

Why don't more eco-minded celebrities in Los Angeles take public transit?

In the weekend Style section of The New York Times, there's a column called "A Night With" that usually follows an emerging star (and his entourage) out to some throbbing Sunset Strip nightclub. But this week's profilee, Vincent Kartheiser, who plays the smarmy Pete Campbell on Mad Men, used his night out a bit differently: The actor, who lives in Los Angeles and does not own a car, took reporter Tricia Romano on a public transit adventure.

A brief story in the Hufflingon Post a few weeks ago mentioned Kartheiser's car-free status (as well as the fact that, at the time, he did not own a toilet, although it appears Kartheiser has moved into a fully-equipped Hollywood apartment). But what's amazing about this weekend's story is that the article focuses almost completely on how Kartheiser moves around the city without a car: He tells Romano how he takes the subway or two buses to the Mad Men set while he works on crossword puzzles or practices his lines, thinks it's easy to navigate the various bus routes, and changes into his clothes when he arrives at auditions to stay fresh. He even utters some pretty memorable lines about how much he enjoys being part of the 10% of L.A.'s population that's transit-dependent:

“It’s wonderful,” he tells the reporter. “Instead of driving and being stressed out about traffic, you can work your scene, you can do your exercises or whatever on the bus. Everyone’s got their own deal.”

“I like that my life slows down when I go places,” he said. “I have all these interactions with the human race and I can watch people living their life and not just in their car.”

There's also a remarkable moment when he encounters a fan at an Echo Park bar who admits to taking public transit for the first time in L.A. Kartheiser reveals some encouraging statistics to his fellow rider: “They’ve done a study and they’ve found that people under 30 no longer view cars as status symbols or even positive things. They look at them as pollutants.”

Which got me thinking: Celebrities put their visibility behind so many environmental causes, from raising awareness about climate change to raging at the government about oil spills. Yet they all still drive. Where are the celebrity public transit advocates?

Judging from this article, a car-free member of the L.A. entertainment industry is still such a novel concept that a new rider would surely get attention in the media. Privacy shouldn't be an issue: In New York, of course, celebs of all stripes take the subway. And if you think about it, it's no more or less of a public place than a grocery store—Kartheiser says he never gets recognized, even when a Mad Men ad was plastered on the side of the bus. Besides, could you imagine TMZ waiting at subway stops and chasing down buses to snap shots of celebs? (Actually, I'd really like to see that.) It almost seems like a better way to go incognito, slipping onto the Red Line to go downtown, unnoticed.

Of course Kartheiser certainly isn't the only celeb famous for riding the rails:  Actor Ed Begley Jr. is as well-known for his environmental activism as he is for his acting roles. I spoke to Begley about his use of public transit in a story for Dwell, and how he once showed up to an awards show on a bike, in a tux. Begley, who also drives an electric car, told me that the shift would take more drastic lifestyle changes for his fellow celebs, who are used to living in low-density neighborhoods atop L.A.'s hills, which require driving (or a hefty hike).

But I know that some celebs are moving into walkable neighborhoods like Hollywood and downtown. And I know that celebrity backing for causes can move product and change perception. If more celebs rode transit and talked about its benefits, I think it would get some starry-eyed followers to get on board. Plus their endorsement of proposed rail lines to higher-income areas like Santa Monica and Beverly Hills could help garner local support. And perhaps these pro-transit celebs will produce more pro-transit entertainment, reversing the trend Tom Vanderbilt recently noticed in films:  Carless characters are usually losers.

So where are the other celebrities who talk about eschewing their wheels for walking? Surely a few of the New York transplants who have never gotten their license would be willing to try the bus. In fitness-crazed L.A. there's sure to be at least a few celebrities who get around exclusively using bikes. Right?

Until then, it looks like Kartheiser is the unofficial car-free transit advocate on behalf of Hollywood. On last night's Mad Men, there was even a possible wink to Kartheiser's carless existence. A rival ad man hopes to entice Kartheiser's character to join his firm by mentioning their newest client, Italian automaker Alfa Romero. Kartheiser looks at him blankly, and says, with deep conviction, "I don't drive."

In fact, Walker, who writes The New York Times Magazine column "Consumed" and was behind the Significant Objects project, first floated the idea a year ago on his blog Murketing after he noticed one of these buildings near his house in Savannah, Georgia:

As I walked past this spot for the zillionth time recently, it occurred to me that there are vacant buildings with no discernible future all over town — all over lots of towns. Wouldn’t it be cool to create completely fictional, but imaginative and exciting, “artist renderings” of their hypothetical futures, too? And post those renderings on the actual vacant buildings?

Now, egged on by his partners, Walker is doing it. Hypothetical Development will feature dozens of architectural renderings for imaginary, never-gonna-happen places, which will be placed on vacant or otherwise forgotten buildings and sites throughout New Orleans. Some ideas the group has come up with already are "The Museum of the Self" and "The Loitering Centre."

Walker (who used to live in New Orleans) and a team of locals chose the sites, for which they've created a map and are now fundraising on Kickstarter to produce the renderings. In addition, the location-based app Gowalla will help to create an itinerary of all the sites, which will serve as a unique tour of the city.

Of course, the meaning of these signs could be misunderstood. Do they worry that residents might get excited about a potential building coming to the neighborhood, only to be disappointed when nothing happens? "This concern has come up, but I believe it's addressed by the nature of the proposals," says Walker. "We tried to avoid any idea that would seem too realistically promising—and also anything that was too much of a potential bummer!"

Still, the idea that such a rendering could rally local residents around an ignored piece of real estate is not so far-fetched. Perhaps this street art project could turn into authentic grassroots activism. "I do think it would be great if the project drew attention to some of these under-used spaces, and something real happens as a result," says Walker. "But really, our goal is probably more modest—just to inject a bit of intrigue, engagement, and pleasure into a corner of the built environment that's otherwise overlooked."

The images will be featured in a New Orleans gallery at the end of their neighborhood run. Check out the website (a beautifully-rendered parody of a real estate developer site) for more information, and watch for the signs to debut this December.

Metropolis magazine's Next Generation competition is an annual showcase of bright ideas from emerging designers focused on a major sustainability challenge. Last year's winner, for example, designed a wind turbine that fit within existing electrical towers. But this year, Metropolis is looking to scale the competition by not only using a real-life client but a client who just happens to own some of largest amounts of real estate in the world: the U.S. General Services Administration.

Using an eight-story building in downtown Los Angeles as a model, this year's Next Generation competition asks designers to "GET ZERO," or create solutions for the building that helps it to have zero environmental impact. According to the release, it asks designers to propose elements that will "transform the existing building, bringing it to the highest possible level of performance in a memorable, beautiful, and original way."

If these ideas are implemented across the General Services Administration's empire of aging, mid-century buildings, the implications could be huge. The GSA owns more than 9,600 buildings across the country—that's 362 million square-feet of office space in which 1.2 million federal employees work. Any kind of designer could propose a replicable, system-wide idea that could make a big difference.

More details are here; deadline is January 11, 2011.

As an architecture and urbanism writer watching the battle over the not-a-mosque that is not-at-Ground Zero, I couldn't be more pleased. The fact that the mayor of New York is commenting on what should be built and why? That's huge. That Donald Trump is taking a proactive (although ultimately failed) role in placemaking by offering to buy out one of the investors? That's cool! Even people are getting involved from other parts of the country:  Now, a Florida preacher wants to fly to New York to engage in an urban planning debate? Unheard of. This fight, and all the emotions that come with it, is an unusually high-profile way for many people to learn about how cities are made. And everyone seems to have an opinion.

Where once an argument about what building goes up or comes down was only reserved for a few-block radius around said project, Park51 has proved that deciding the fate of a city block can be of global concern. There are polls being conducted in places like Ohio and Alabama, and yes, even as far away as Alaska, asking their citizens to make a decision about a building they will likely never enter. In a city they may never visit.

Yes, the attention on building communities is great. But all I can think about is how much our country's neighborhoods would be improved if Americans directed the same kind of energy they've put into fighting Park51 towards shaping their own cities.

A rendering of Park51 by an unnamed architect on Park Place in Lower Manhattan

The term NIMBY—for Not In My Back Yard—is fairly new, coined by British writer Emilie Travel Livezey in the 1980s. It was created to describe the people that battled unsavory development like a sewage plant, but has evolved to include anyone who wants to battle any kind of development. Back when NIMBYs were named, learning about what buildings were planned in a community required a great deal of effort for the stakeholder, who had to physically attend community planning meetings. To organize with other supporters meant making phone calls, having meetings, knocking on doors, getting signatures—and doing a lot of research.

Now blogs like Curbed report on the minutiae of city council meetings and suddenly heated sentiments are blown up and spattered in comments all over the internet. It's not unusual for public comment to be opened up online for proposed architectural projects, and Facebook petitons can be organized so one can throw their blind support behind SAY NO TO WALMART!!! by simply clicking "like." What should be a local debate suddenly opens up to a global audience, one that doesn't always have the whole picture.

The Burlington Coat Factory on the planned site of Park51, viewed in Google Street View

Pictures are actually part of the problem. Nothing has changed our relationship with places like Google Maps. How many of us have pored over the gray smear of that construction site in Lower Manhattan? We can peek in on the site of Park51—anytime—in these surprisingly-crisp, satellite images, so these places become more real. We can even get a sense of the people who are walking up and down that street using Street View. We can pull up a thousand tagged Flickr photos up and down the block. We may know what a place looks like, but we don't know what makes a place.

Only the people who live and work in Lower Manhattan know what's best for their own blocks. They know that the skyscraper-shadowed stretch of Park Place and the eight acres of the 9/11 Memorial are New York worlds away from each other. They know that there are far more unsavory businesses operating even closer to Ground Zero:  a strip club, off-track betting, McDonald's (and, as we've pointed out before, there is already an actual mosque less than a mile from Ground Zero). They know that there's an amazing Amish Market next door to the Park51 site that's great for lunch. And for the rest of us, it's really none of our business.

The rendering for the 9/11 Memorial by Peter Walker and Michael Arad

You may argue that Ground Zero is, perhaps, the one place in the country that belongs to all of us—because of what happened there, it's universally an "American" property. And maybe collectively, as a country, we should all unite to protect it. Agreed. So instead of fighting about what happens outside of the memorial's borders, why not lend some much-needed assistance to what will be one of the most poignant public spaces in the country? Have you donated to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum?

I challenge anyone who has spent even 15 minutes reading about the two blocks between a proposed community center and a memorial in a city far, far away to turn your focus back to where you actually live. Maybe check out some of the far more disturbing distances in your own neighborhood. How close is the liquor store to the nearest elementary school? How far is that farmers market from the lowest-income part of the city? And what are you doing about it?

In the very near future, something you don't want—or something you do—will be coming to your neighborhood. Whether it's a "Ground Zero Mosque" or a "9/11 Memorial," whether you're for or against it, you can take an active role to make your neighborhood evolves in the way that you want it to. What could be more American than that?