In 2010, I co-designed and co-project managed the design and construction of two open pavilion structures and a community garden for the Chinese Christian Church and YMCA daycare in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. I helped to facilitate a collaborative process negotiating seventy designers (and subsequent laborers) on one design.
In an 8-Week span we distilled 70 designs into one, generated construction documents, remediated the land, poured foundations and erected two pavilions and a functioning vegetable garden. As my first Design-Build, the process of constructing the full-scale project was significant, it bridged visionary intentions with an understanding of how things work, how parts fit and work together to make a whole; and how conceptual lines can blur to achieve more integrated multi-functionality: our walls became furniture, the floors became garden beds the roofs collected water.
This project offered a way to think about function in a way that manifests simple yet complex ideas, while learning, practicing and revising strategic methods for improving the capacity of collaboration.