Thesis Presentation

June 08, 2016

Here's a video of my final MFA thesis presentation from May 10, 2016. It was recorded from the Transdisciplinary Design studio at Parsons.

Final presentation for my MFA thesis from Parsons' Transdisciplinary Design program. This thesis explores how design can bolster social capital in fragmented urban neighborhoods. Social capital - defined by Robert Putnam as the commodity of trust, reciprocity and respect between people - is a vital component for neighborhoods to be self-sustaining.

Design for Social Capital

This blog served as a running log of thoughts, terms and experiments as I pursued my MFA thesis in Transdisciplinary Design program from Parsons.

My thesis is about investigating design's role in fostering human capital in fragmented urban neighborhoods. Particularly, I focused on my own neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where people of different backgrounds – race, length of residence, age, religion, lifestyle, etc – live in the same geographic space.

The main hypothesis of this thesis is that if a neighborhood is entrusted with caring for and engaging with artifacts that are left outside at all hours of the day, then an increase in social capital in the neighborhood will follow.

Social capital is defined by Robert Putnam as "connections among individuals - social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them" (2000).