generators of diversity

RISD students have not relocated. If you ask student where their home is, they will most likely reply a different state or even country. The fact being they’ve been living in Rhode Island for up to four years does not matter, home is defined as another place. I never fully understood this, when people ask where my home is I respond: Providence, where else would my home be. I learned later this was not a common reply.
People come to RISD for college, they don’t move for jobs, to place their children in a better school, to be near elderly parents, or any other reasons other then college. Jacob’s first rule to creating diversity in a city is the district should serve more then one function.(150) I would consider College to be the primary function of the area. Nothing compares to the colleges as far as bringing people into the state. The name ’College Hill’ was not a coincidence.
Jacobs second rule is, “Most Blocks must be short; that is streets and opportunities to turn corners must be frequent.”(150) For the most part RISD is a great example for this rule. The rule implies that people will see each other and bump into each other periodically. This becomes cloudy in a college environment. I’ve had a quite few experiences passing classmates without acknowledging each other. In a city community it is not as common to run into an acquaintance. This intersection is too familiar to the college student, making the situation less meaningful and less obligated to respond every time he/she crosses path with a familiar face. In a comparison to my college experience at Maine College of Art, students always acknowledged each other in passing. Concluding, RISD holds a reputation of being a stuck up school, maybe this behavior has been past down from generation to generation?
“3. The district must mingle buildings that vary in age and condition, including a good proportion of old ones so that they vary in the economic yield they must produce”. (150-151)The campus district of Rhode Island School of Design entangles large industrial buildings, multi-family houses, and modern architecture achievements. Buildings range in appearance and condition. In Jacobs 3rd rule, the east side portrays a structured model to fill the requirements. The rule only depicts the physical structures, without mention of the society inhibiting the environment. The society that occupies the majority of the space are college age students coming from higher economic brackets. This class distinction plays hard against promoting diversity. Realtors know the market and can raise rents coordinating to students need for housing. The RISD area is home to many buildings, but a society that does not “vary in age or condition”.
College hill has a lot of people all in a small area, making RISD completely compliant with Jacob’s rule number four. “There must be a sufficiently dense concentration of people, for what purposes they may be there”. (151)
Jacob states cities do not automatically generate diversity by existing. (148) RISD is a prime example of this understanding. RISD offers stores and restaurants, but all are owned by RISD. The College has unwritten social rules, and behaviors. These culturally learned behaviors override common courtesy of passing in the street. Much of the population is from one social class. Comparing what forms diversity in a city to what promotes diversity on a campus are two very different things. Like Jacobs’s rules to have diversity develop, colleges have diversity promoting centers. The one big difference is that colleges accept the type of person they want, where a city can not as thoroughly restrict its population.

Interview conducted between Arley Rose, Morgan Calderini and Myself. Interview focused on Arley’s role at AS220.

Arley Rose
Working at AS220 for 4 years
Morgan Calderini
Working at AS220 for 2 years

What do you do?
Arley is the core to anything relating to design at AS220, she teaches classes at Broad Street Studios, and runs a program called, “Design Providence”. Design Providence is a “cottage industry”. “A cottage industry is an earned income program including education, resources, and space with artist of a particular craft or media” -Arley Rose Arley was first involved in AS220 as a “communication director”. Arley found working in her office, that people were always coming in with their laptops to work in her company. The office she worked in was not equip with space for this type of use. From this experience Arley came up with the idea of Design Providence. Design Providence is in a start up phase, currently it is a space for designers to go and work. Freelance workers who would normally work from home offices now have a space to communicate and have a fellow design community. As the programs becomes more established and needed, it will run on a membership fee base, and possibly relocate to a recently acquired building by AS220; the Mercantile block.
What space did you make?
Arley moved her office located in AS220’s main building to AS220’s Dryfus Building. She moved into a room coined the “archive room”, because of its use as a storage room. The new location made Arley’s Design Providence more accessible to an existing artist community at the Dryfus. Design Providence gained a “public element”. Arley made a space that offers new networking connections for designers. In a comparison to RISD, Morgan added that Design Providence will work to overlap departments, so each feels connected to each other, a problem she encountered at her education at RISD. The program offers artist who may have no technical skills in design, an opportunity to take a class, and/or have direct contact with graphic designers in the same building. Why is this important to you?
This question can not be answered fully in an afternoon. Arley loves her job. She benefits from a creative community is many ways. She feels no need to attend further schooling because she is learning everyday from her job. She gets to do what she loves, without having to work for something she does not believe in. Her job is meaningful and has purpose. Design Providence makes design accessible to communities who do not have funds to hire designers for work. She is connected to people who share her interests and beliefs. She is doing well for her community. She also gets to “work with her honey“(That’s Morgan)
How is this space appropriated?
The space is part of the larger structure; AS220. AS220 has purchased a few buildings where it uses the space to rent at market price to businesses and offer lower rents for artists and non-profits. Design Providence is located in the Dryfus building. Dryfus Building is home to Local 122 restaurant and bar, studios and artist live spaces. The new building that Design Providence will be moving to is the Mercantile Block. The building will keep Wheels Bar and the locksmith on the first floor. The print shop, darkrooms, fab lab, and music studios will be relocated to Mercantile. Along with studio departments AS220 will be renting space to Rhode Island council for the humanities. In the new location Design Providence will be connected with double doors to the print shop, Photoshop, and fab lab. The set up of the building is to encourage each section and group to work with one another.

the four

I met K* in the hallway waiting for the RISD store to open. She informed me what time the store would open. Since we were both waiting I took the opportunity to ask her about community.
K* transferred to RISD from community college in Philly.
She feels a lack of community here.
She has close friends, but none live in Providence.
Her connection to community is taking photos of downtown Providence.

Back in my studio, I wandered into the sophomore room; everyone was pedal to the medal sewing. I wandered into the junior room where I found a student working on the tracing table, caught.

S* represents a well voiced opinion that community is found in her studio. Studio is where she spends most of her time.
She has grown close to students in her department. She sees RISD being too competitive and intense for a community to form. Forced community, like movie nights hosted by R.A.‘s are rarely attended. RISD is too diverse, with too many groups to be in one place at one time.

In my definition of community, it is composed of many parts; students, faculty, staff, and beyond. I believe in the mixing of generations to teach and uphold standards of each other. Therefore I wanted to seek out more than just students; unfortunately I waited until the weekend to conduct my interviews.

L* works part time at the RISD museum. She recently married and moved to Providence from New York. She defines her community as something she does not necessarily interact with, but watches. She feels connected to community at farmers markets, library, and other open public space. Going to these locations, watching from the outside, she feels part of something bigger. The Eastside is her community.

Seeking my last interviewee in the night, I enter market house. I’m not sure if any life exists in the building in the evening. I entered to be welcomed by a persistent alarm buzzing, a student telling me they have a key, and they can’t work with all this noise. I leave.

Textiles is safe.; friendly girls who weave. I sit down next to a girl on the floor wrapping yarn around cardboard. I tell her about the class and ask her a question. She tells me she has already been interviewed about community today, what are the chances? But who can resist when she has had time to rethink her previous answers.

A* is in textiles. She finds a strong community in the MET, The Quad, and RISD beach. She talks about department studio community and calls this, “different moods of community”. Her perfect definition of community is Coffee Exchange, they have all the senses covered; it is a special place.

Touring the campus of RISD prior to my enrollment, I asked the student tour guide what kind of sub groups were established at RISD, and what departments had stereo type students. After continuing to explain my question the student could only think of a group of Asian students who liked to design cell phones in I.D. We continued our tour to the apparel department where he informed he did not know any apparel students and did not know anyone who knew apparel students.
I learned of the extent of disconnect after enrolling in RISD. Small self made communities are rarely seen around campus. Student and faculty rarely exchange conversation out of class. Even in passing fellow students avoid saying hello. The whole thing gave me a complex until I learned this was an occurrence not limited to myself.
The side walk contact Jacobs describes in the book, “Death and Life of Great American Cities”, refers to trust acquired from interactions though public space. Becoming familiar with people in public interactions allows communities to gain trust and knowledge. In connecting with people in simple community interactions, such as grocery shopping, laundry, and playing in the park we are familiar with faces and general trust grows. Trust is essential in the formation of community. Jacobs describes how trust is established in a community, “The trust of a city street is formed over time from many, many, little public sidewalk contacts”. (56)
The one place on campus with a consistent street life is the location in front of Benson Hall, the print making building. Students have claimed the stoop, providing the community a familiarity about who these printmakers are. Although I have never had any personal connection and usually avoid walking throught the crowd that forms, I am familiar with faces, in part with my sense of the printmaking identity and my general trust of these faces in public.
This space is one of a few where students can be seen gathering outside. Sidewalk interaction is not strongly encouraged in the RISD campus. In the new Chase Center, public hang out space is located under the building, out of sight from the street. Keeping these spaces out of the view of larger community enforces a segregation of the RISD community form the surrounding community. Placing student gathering areas such places also reinforces the separation of student and faculty. When students are separated from the whole community, a lack of trust, knowledge, and communication forms, reinforcing the separation.
Public areas where students would have interactions with faculty are limited, and minimal space is open to the public. In coffee shops that are used by faculty and students there are no chairs or tables. In cafes like Watermark that promote being open to the public, gaining access to the establishment, patrons have to climb an intimating stairway.
The general frustrations shared within the RISD community could be partially solved with sidewalk interaction. Independent stores, Laundromats, coffee shops and bars, would help students, faculty, staff and the public gain trust with each other. Subgroups would have a stronger support system, and students would not be limited to interaction only within their department. Knowledge would spread further with more connections forming in the community, thus making the community whole.