# 18 Wed., 14 April: Invention
Curator: Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson
(note that due to a schedule conflict, this will be the second wednesday)

#19 Wed., 5 May: Streets/Art Part 1
Curator: Fred Scharmen

#20 Wed., 2 June: Streets/Art Part 2
Curator: Ben Stone

#21 Wed., 7 July: Sketch & Bitch
Curator: Amber Shriver

#22 Wed., 4 August: Raw Materials
Curator: Peter Doo

We’ve got a homework assignment: D:center Baltimore has challenged each of our constituents to write up a concise, clear vision for effecting change, this is our brief:

What’s your idea for a project that will change the way people think about the city? Be as abstract (manifesto) or as concrete (manifest) as you like, write a call to arms or an action statement, but it should be a vision that you can stand behind and support, and it should be something that the D:center has the unique opportunity to participate in.

… now we’re at the due date, and the responses are flowing in:

There’s a proposal for an Art Market incubator zone on the West Side of downtown near Charles Center, from Craig Purcell.

We have a point-by-point primer on the relationship between social interaction and the essence of creative change from Marian Glebes.

There is a vision of a physical Design Center at 10 North Charles St. by Klaus Philipsen.

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson imagines a design-build competition that would make Baltimore its own developer, and its own client.

Mary Anne Akers wants to see a sustainable redevelopment project for the Baltimore City Gateway site.

I’ve posted a new diagram and concept plan for The PLANT, a phased, multidisciplinary, small scale development project originally created for the Baltimore Bioneers Conference.

… a lot of similar themes are emerging here. What’s your plan for changing the way people exist in the city? This post will continue to be updated as new writeups come in.

We’re going to try to have paper and pencil available at the Design Convos from now on, we’ll collect your notes, doodles, grocery lists or whatever and post them here in the blog. Design Convo #16 (we went back and counted, and decided it really was 16, after all), had some great doodling fodder. The collage here shows what looks like some notes from Dana Bourland’s excellent presentation on her work at Enterprise Community Partners (Food Distribution, Public Transportation, Healthy Housing). On the upper left corner is a graphic that looks inspired by some of the amazing diagrams from Pavlina Ilieva of PIKL (this one is my favorite). In the center are some bubble diagrams, reminiscent of Julie Gabrielli’s presentation on wrangling the diversity of constituents involved in the production of UMD’s award winning LEAF House Solar Decathlon entry. Someone’s got some notes on the Baltimore Community Foundation’s Kresge Grant program, which we were lucky to hear about from BCF’s Melissa Warlow.

There’s also what looks like a sketch for some kind of cryptographic or programming matrix, a diagram about greywater capture in a plumbing drain stack, and, interestingly, a small illustration labeled: Blueberry, Mint, Cardamom (sounds delicious). Click here to see a larger version, and check here to download the presentations. Keep the doodles coming!

Thanks to Geoff Stack for curating this one, and thanks to Russell, our host at Windup Space, and to everyone who donated, for helping us raise some funds for Architecture for Humanity’s reconstruction plan in Haiti. Those are on their way to AFH now.