Learning from St Louis

Image courtesy of CityRiverArch.org

Turnstone has recently been interviewed about the role of storytelling in placemaking, for PBS’s current affairs show, Stay Tuned, on KETC, Channel 9, out of St Louis, Missouri.

This week’s episode, broadcast on 4/4/2013, was about the St Louis Gateway Arch Grounds 2015 renovation project, specifically the vote that narrowly passed to support a controversial earmarked “Arch tax” increase, to be levied locally to support the renovation of the famous St Louis monument and its surrounding grounds (technically a National Park).

Stay Tuned presenter, Casey Nolan, asked me about what it takes to get a city behind a redesign of public space, what other international precedents there are that St Louis could follow and what steps it takes to win public hearts and minds around big ideas for shared spaces. There’s a good background panel discussion at the top of the show, then Turnstone talks sense from around minute 16. Click the clip above to watch the full show.

New Walk (and Bike) City

Image courtesy of the NYC Dept of Transportation

So Turnstone’s updates here were scare during a chunk of 2012, and here’s my excuse: I took an 8-month walk around New York, a bit like Phyllis Pearsall, tireless authoress of the London A-Z, did in the 1930s. I went analog and on secondment to join a larger design team for a really special project:

Transportation Nation and Brooklyn Spoke explain exactly what for in these previews of the NYC Department of Transportation pedestrian and bike share wayfinding systems, projects that are set to appear across the city in 2013. More about those to follow here in the coming months as the projects get off – and on – the ground.

Meantime, if you look lost at any intersection on or off the grid, the person approaching you to give you directions, whether you’d asked for them or not, is probably me.

On board at AIGA New York

I’ve recently accepted an invitation to join the board of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Graphics Arts (AIGA). For 30 years, the organization has been at the center of professional design practice and it’s an honor to participate at this stage. Led by Board Chair, Willy Wong and in esteemed company, I’m thankful to the team who elected us newcomers. Over the coming year, I look forward to contributing and to steering some of the ideas, issues and inspiration Turnstone has been gathering here, towards to new and familiar audiences.

When Telly Savalas comes to town

Turnstone’s back to its blog after months of roaming in what we now affectionately call ‘meatspace’. We’ve been on the road, doing fieldwork, and away from the screen a while. In our sojournings, some nuggests to share:

Turns out life after Kojak turned Telly Savalas into a voiceover for Britain’s finest cities: In several movies by Harold Baim, he was the poster child for post-war, post-industrial 1970s Birmingham (that’s UK, not Alabama), Portsmouth, Aberdeen and elsewhere. Watch this clip as he waxes lyrical about West Midlands gun and cake shops then stay tuned for a seamless segue to the over-40s disco-dancing competition. Oh dear. If this was Kojak’s ‘kind of town’, he’ll really should have tried harder with the accent. A lurid, slightly desperate celebration of urban regeneration. Thankfully Brum has a lot more to show for it these days, smooth TV stars not included.

Then, to cleanse your palette, soothe your eyes and without straining your necks, here’s a rather lovely resource of the world’s skyscrapers, in elevation. For starters, here’s New York. Oh, and Birmingham.

Services are Everywhere: Turnstone at AIGA National Design Conference

Turnstone joined Zipcar and Facebook to introduce “Services Are Everywhere” to the annual AIGA National Design Conference in Phoenix, AZ this Fall: The all-women panel kicked off four sessions on service design, moderated by innovation consultancy, Continuum. Click the clip here to watch this recently released, short’n'sweet film of the presenters’ perspectives, from Disney, Facebook, the Mayo Clinic, My Police, Sony, Turnstone, Zipcar and others.

Turnstone in transit in 2012

Beyond yellow taxi fleets to greener road transit:

The downstate New York chapter of the US Department of Energy’s Clean Cities Coalition will roll out a new identity in 2012, based on strategy completed by Turnstone in 2011. The Clean Cities program’s mission is to improve air quality in major American cities by reducing, replacing and eliminating petroleum-consuming road transit with cleaner vehicle fleets.

In September 2012, Turnstone will present a paper at TRANSED 2012, India’s national conference on Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Disabled Persons, in Delhi.

Turnstone in schools

Turnstone’s most inspiring audience of 2011: In March, we addressed 150 5th-8th grade students at the East Harlem School. Here are EHS’s star performers at BB King’s, at the school’s annual Poetry Slam. The School invites volunteer tutors to join their Saturday School program during the academic year. Interested? Email here and Turnstone will introduce you.

This Fall, Rachel returned to the School of Visual Arts Interaction Design MFA Program, to supervise five graduate thesis projects. The second years will, come hell or high water, present a range of fantastic concepts, ideas realized, at their Graduate Symposium in May. Looking forward to it already. It’s a strong year.

In 2011, Turnstone also presented to the Harvard Graduate School of Design Urban Planning Organization and Carnegie Mellon University, as a guest of the Nierenberg Chairs of Design, and to Moholy Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest, Hungary.

Turnstone in collaboration

In 2011, Turnstone participated in Amplify Brooklyn, run in November by the DESIS Lab at Parsons, the New School for Design, as part of their Open Design for Organizational Innovation initiative, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The one-day workshop brought together designers, social scientists and practitioners to use fieldwork and other design methods to address the organizational challenges of a non-profit organization in North Brooklyn. Here’s a short film about the workshop, Open Design for Organizational Innovation from Parsons Desis Lab on Vimeo:

In the spring, Turnstone also joined a team of architects and designers from Italy, Portugal and Hungary to submit a proposal to EUROPAN 11, a competition for regenerating a section of the town of Szeged, Hungary. Of 70 entrants, ours was a finalist, commended for its strategy, though none of the projects, not even the winner, will be realized. The EU has more pressing matters to attend to…?

Turnstone’s sideproject, dilys+asante, created more hit party props for the award-winning I Love Vinyl party’s second anniversary in May, as featured in Time Out in June. Even us strategists need to get hands on. And our dance on.

Happy New Year! The 2011 Round Up: Turnstone inspired

Happy 2012. In 2011, Turnstone got the most out of

Tweeting more than blog posting. Follow @TurnstoneTweets.
Postcards from Penguin, 100 classic book covers
Sol Le Witt at Mass MoCA
The drawings of Kelsey Dake
Fifteen minutes listening to Nobel prize-winner, Leymah Gbowee
Symeon Brown‘s take on the riots at the London Policy Conference.
The Power of Making at the Victoria & Albert Museum
Christina Stampfli joining Turnstone
Graphic Details, female graphic novelists and cartoonists, exhibiting in NYC, touring in 2012
Steve Jobs, and many more, RIP
Ryoji Ikeda’s The Transfinite at The Armory on the Park, NYC (above)

Taxis of Two Tomorrows

In October, Turnstone got a preview of Nissan’s Taxi of Tomorrow. We’re delighted a new cab has come of the strategic vision we initially set out with the Design Trust for the Taxi and Limousine Commission.

 

 

 

 

Turnstone is equally delighted the accessible, alternative fuel-ready  Karsan V1 cab, shortlisted last year to become New York’s Taxi of Tomorrow, is now a driveable prototype. The V1 went on display at the Dutch Auto Show in December, set for production in Europe.