Week 2: Exploring my hunches with "Hunch"

This week the name of the game has been Ai exploration. I spent at least 4 hours playing with Hunch and creating as many spin off scenarios as seemed useful to me without getting completely overwhelmed.

I’ve realized that my goal now is trying to idealistically combine my original Prepper research question of “How might we entice reluctant individuals to take on emergency preparedness before disaster strikes?” with a community focus, pulled from my reading of Abundance by Ezra Klein.

Getting people excited about community and getting them to say Yes In My back Yard (YIMBY) to all sorts of infrastructure that could be life saving in the event of an emergency goes hand in hand with the original Prepper ethos.

Upon engaging with the hutch chat I had two main concerns that it somewhat helped me think through. The first was how might focusing on too product heavy a thesis impact my future career objectives? I don’t want to be a product designer or industrial designer per se, and I have no real prior experience in the product design field. I worry I might get bogged down in this particular aspect of the thesis and loose sight of the greater branding potential and scope of the idea.

My second major concern however is breadth. Is this too big? Is the research too much?

On Thursday our Branding professor took us to Hudson River Park to show us the branding and way finding signage he and his team had worked on with Pentagram. Seeing how his work shaped the environment made me think of all the neighborhoods in desperate need of similar design work. How much this investment of the most basic nature, way finding signage, can shape an environment and give it purpose and intentionality. It really made me think about the location specifics of this project.

One of the key components I’d like to create for my thesis will be a mapping system thats downloadable. Starting with my local neighborhood, I thought it would be interesting to list the locations of trained professionals in the area. Like a Marauders Map for neighborhood community preparedness. Who has medical expertise? gardening expertise? nursing expertise? engineering or mechanical knowledge? The list is almost endless. All these skills could be hugely practical in the event of a climate disaster.

Here in lies the problem though, I keep thinking of specific elements I want to make or include without having a clear vision of the whole. Like a mosaic coming together piece by piece.

In a recent in-class feedback session someone suggested creating a database of resources instead of creating my own. Perhaps there’s something to that as well. Being a database and a hub, bringing together the disparate resources of individuals within a community by listing and linking them to others in itself would be a hugely successful resource.

However the problem then becomes how much do you share publicly with a community group? How do you entice people to list themselves as resources?

The thoughts will undoubtedly continue to unfold week by week, but I’m still happy to have the privilege of getting to undertake this task.

Until next week!

I would also like to disclose that the names by which I’m referring to my ideas namely Prepper and YIMBY are working titles, and will be subject to revision once the ideation phase is more thoroughly underway.

Week 1: Prepper vs. YIMBY, Two Paths to Designing Resilience

Where are we now? September 2nd-9th 2025

As a second year MFADesign student at SVA in New York City I have the unique privilege of getting to make a thesis.

When we left off in May my thesis project was called Prepper.

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• Human-caused climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather that lead to billion-dollar disasters. Citizens across Europe have been getting advice about emergency planning, which may feel more urgent after blackout on Iberian peninsula

• The word ”PREPPER” is defined as a person who believes a catastrophic disaster or emergency is likely to occur in the future and makes active preparations for it, typically by stockpiling food, ammunition, and other supplies.

• Despite countless life experiences and hard data, I am not a “prepper” and don’t particularly identify with the term.

• And yet I can’t deny it probably wouldn’t hurt to be prepared.

My research question then became: How might we entice reluctant individuals to take on emergency preparedness before disaster strikes?

• PREPPER is not a lifestyle brand but a service encompassing reliable home essentials for the every day and the more frequent emergency, radios, first aid kits and tutorials, specialized hyper local maps, Downloadable’s, instruction manuals to help prep your home pre disaster against; fire flood, earthquake etc. But most importantly Preppers objects are beautiful and meant for display and every day interaction. In this way the user is familiarized with the object before it is needed in an emergency.

• Over the summer I spoke to some experts in the field specifically first responders’s about what said emergency situations need more than anything else. I also explored other Thesis ideas in addition to Prepper.

Changing Directions & Exploring New Thoughts

I read a book last month that had a particular impact on me. Upon re-entering year 2 of my MFA Design journey, I can see how much it effected my thesis design thinking.

Ezra Kleins Abundance is a truly seminal book that perfectly sums up his political perspective. One of the main focuses of Abundance are building more housing in order to solve the housing crisis and creating more YIMBY attitudes in wealthy and desirable city’s across the US.

I began thinking a lot about my own relationship to NIMBY and YIMBEism as I’ve recently shifted in my belief system regarding that very issue. My neighborhood is currently overrun with new build high rises when just a few short years ago it was a quiet, quaint neighborhood filled with old industrial wear houses. I feel a great deal of connection to the neighborhood of Gowanus Brooklyn, and while I didn’t grow up here, I didn’t grow up far away either. As a lifelong Brooklynite I’m no stranger to the changing tides of city planning. Watching the monumental rise of Downtown Brookly, Barclays Center and Williamsburg has largely defined my youth in this city. Gentrification was the constant debate, was it worth it? Was it good? Is it evil? What are the larger socioeconomic ramifications? These questions go still largely unanswered. Instead we simply move forward. There is currently an affordable housing Crisis not just in New York City but across America. The general consensus is that if you build more housing, at any price point, it will free up cheaper and cheaper housing all the way down the line. That coupled with NYC’s pre existing low income housing policy that all new builds must contain a certain number of rent stabilized units could potentially alleviate some of the symptoms of the crisis.

In practice however it leaves entire neighborhoods devoured by construction. Since all these building take between 3–5 years to complete and all began at different times, the result is a neighborhood in flux.

As a resident of one such neighborhood I dream of the day I have a coffee shop next door and a beautiful canal front walkway to enjoy. But I didn’t always. Many in the community fought hard to stop the progress or sold out to the developers excited to be rid of the headache. But for some staying to watch the evolution of the neighborhood became a sacrifice worth making. Waking up every morning to the sounds of piles being driven into bed rock, the smells of the porto-poties overflowing and dust finding its way in through every crack has been challenging, but it is also a tangible representation of hope for the future of the neighborhood and the city.

Enter a new thesis idea:

Keeping track of all the construction projects in your area or city through an interactive map

Create community by being like Nextdoor but with a Birds Eye mindset of the ways in which the neighborhood is changing and by highlighting the positives

It ultimately becomes a way for residents to feel a sense of understanding on what’s happening in their neighborhood, keeping the informed and in the loop.

• What are these developments bringing to the table?

• What’s the status of the project?

• What will the project look like when completed? What’s the timeline?

• What are the health requirements? Has there been testing? Is it safe?

• What’s the injury rate on the job?

• How might we use projected city planning to create stronger community ties in New York City?

• Public school locations, rankings etc. and helps city officials budget for upcoming surges in population

• Access to community meetings, times, locations, topics discussed & makes them more accessible

Weather you’re a new renter, a lifer or looking for an apt, you’re choosing a community. YIMBY is here to answer any and all questions, queries or concerns you might have about the planned changes to your current or perspective neighborhood.

Partnering with New York’s City planning office YIMBY brings together the desire for more affordable housing with the realities of living in a construction boom.

The real focus becomes community, in that the real goal is to help people put down roots and raise children in the city by fostering community despite the changing nature of the city.