Design Brigade is an 8-week internship program sponsored by the Yale Center for Collaborative Arts and Media that pairs a team of students with local clients in order to solve spatial issues in New Haven. During summer 2021, in partnership with nonprofit CitySeed, I served as a Design Brigade intern, working to re-envision the New Haven CitySeed farmers' markets as a more inclusive and diverse space. Documentation of our work can be found at: https://medium.com/design-brigade.
Team Members: Sebastian Bruno, Veronica Chen, Claire Hicks, Joey Reich, Serge Saab, Yang Tian, Huy Truong
Surveying New Haven residents on the Green
The first four weeks were dedicated to research and community outreach. My research was centered on the accessibility of farmers' market produce compared to those from other grocery stores in New Haven. I found that though the prices of goods at the farmers' market were often comparable to those of organic goods in other, especially locally-based, grocery stores, they were vastly more expensive compared to those of conventional produce in large chain stores such as Stop & Shop. In addition, the communities with a lower median household income were not only less likely to be able to afford to buy produce at the current farmers' markets, but were also less likely to live within a reasonable distance from the current market locations.
I drafted a survey that we administered to residents in New Haven in order to understand how consumers currently engage with the farmers' market and the reasons for which they shop for groceries where they do. The survey results revealed that most people did not regularly shop at the farmers' market. This was due to multiple levels of barriers to entry to the market: knowing about the existence of the market, knowing the location of the market, distance from the market, and price affordability.
The second part of the project focused on designing both short and long term solutions for a more inclusive and diverse famers' market. The aim of the short term solutions was to create immediately-implementable, temporary interventions that could be placed in the existing market locations, while the aim of the long term solutions was to plan a permanent space and structure for future markets.
As a member of the short term solution group, I wanted to design a structure that would build a sense of community around the market as well as encourage consumers to try new foods. Inspired by recipe rolodexes, I created a recipe "Rolodesk" that would allow users to explore recipes created by fellow community members and share their own favorite foods and recipes. On one side, users can sit and write about or draw dishes featuring market produce. On the other side, they can browse and add their creations to a collection of community recipes.
Rolodesk Initial Concept Illustration
The Community Cookbook celebrates the fresh ingredients offered at the farmers’ market, encouraging people to explore new tastes, and more importantly, it celebrates the vast diversity of food experiences within New Haven, inviting market-goers to leave a cultural footprint behind at the market. The purpose of the interactive collection is to foster a sense of togetherness within the market, creating an atmosphere where people are excited not only to buy, but to learn about food from fellow community members.
Concept Sketches
Final concepts rendered using Onshape
Details of recipe panels. Each panel consists of corkboard mounted onto wood. The wood provides structure and stiffness as the user flips through the panels while the flexible corkboard allows panels to be added and removed from the collection.
Intended to be placed within existing markets, the Rolodesk serves as a vessel for the Community Cookbook, which allows marketgoers to exchange food experiences with other members of the community. The final concept is rendered here. In the center of the Rolodesk is a collection of recipe panels that can be flipped similarly to pages in a book. Each panel features user-submitted cards that detail recipes, recount food-related memories, or describe how people engage with fresh produce.
Users can create their own cards by sitting at either end of the Rolodesk. Each station provides empty cards, writing and drawing utensils, as well as directions that invite users to express their food experiences however they would like. Completed cards are adhered to the corkboard side of the recipe panels, where they can be viewed.
Left: 5" x 8" recipe cards
Right: Directions to add to the collection are mounted onto each side of the Rolodesk.
Rendering by Yang Tian
Exploded views of assembly
Another proposed component of the Community Cookbook is the digital archive where CitySeed can post photos of recipe cards, transcribe and translate handwritten recipes from the cookbook, and invite market-goers to submit their own photos of dishes they have made from the cookbook. This digital photo archive could take the form of a website or Instagram account; a sketch of the proposed website is pictured to the right.
