Celebrate our 7th Service Design Day with two student showcases from Parsons School of Design:

1. Relational Mapping: Gardener and Pantry Food Insecurity Service by Shelagh Bennett (she/her), Aloma Antao (she/her), and Camille Girard (she/her) from M.F.A. in Transdisciplinary Design.
2. Atokli Tierra by Niamh Peren (she/her), Carmen Valdes (she/her), America Giron (she/her), and Erika Vazques (she/her) from M.S. in Strategic Design and Management.

Relational Mapping: Gardener and Pantry Food Insecurity Service

A non-profit organization enabling gardeners to share surplus produce across the US wanted to expand its service model to communities in Tribal Nations. To address this challenge, the team conducted remote interviews with gardeners and food pantries, alongside desk research about infrastructure, demographics, food cultures and gardening behaviors. The result was a spatial service blueprint generated from a true-to-scale geographical map of two distinct neighborhoods: a thriving suburb and a Native American reservation, as a representation of the current state and the future state of the service. The former enabled to identify critical points of analysis; the latter was utilized as a tool to ignite further research and foresight, proposing key areas of inquiry such as service model shifts, opportunities, and critical uncertainties for the organization as they move into a new context.

Atokli Tierra

Mexico has some of the most free trade agreements in the world (13 agreements with 50 countries). The warmer climate allows to grow certain produce year-round when other countries cannot, and in bigger quantities. However, the extreme use of fertilisers has degraded the land, and reduced crop production greatly. The United Nations Food Summit called for a reinvention of the current food systems in order to promote climate resiliency. The team was challenged to facilitate a growth in Mexican Regenerative Farming practices to provide stakeholders with connection and stability. During the process they deep dived into research, spending weeks speaking with farmers, restaurant owners, educators, soil experts and regenerative agriculture experts. The exploration led to a service platform designed to connect Mexico City to local farmers practicing regenerative agriculture techniques, support sustainable practices and manage logistics.

This event will take place on Zoom.

Loose Agenda

** We will be recording this session**

6-6:10 PM Introduction and Housekeeping

6:10-6:40 PM Project Presentation 1

6:40-6:50 PM Q&A 1

6:50-7:20 PM Project Presentation 2

7:20-7:30 PM Q&A 2

** Recordings are published to your YouTube, don't forget to subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh5IDURWweBvTwx23bY_eog