Over six weeks in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood, the art and design collective known as the Museum of Contemporary Phenomena (MCP) harnessed one of the city’s greatest and most overlooked sources of energy: teenagers. In a vacant storefront, MCP conducted a series of hands-on workshops addressing the design of safe spaces. Thirty teens took part, learning about the complete design process—interviewing neighbors, mapping sites, brainstorming ideas, developing concepts, presenting them to the community, and selecting an idea to pursue at full scale. Their final project was the transformation of a parking lot into a lively place, replete with benches, flower planters, a climbing wall, and skateboard ramps which the teens built themselves. By empowering teens to improve the spaces they regularly occupy, Territory created an opening for them to positively interact with each other and their communities.
- Projects
- 61st Street Farmers Market
- 78th Street Play Street
- 596 Acres
- 1415
- ACTIVATE!
- Air Quality Egg
- AirCasting
- Amphibious Architecture
- Aquaponics Container System
- Art in Odd Places
- ARTfarm
- Astoria Scum River Bridge
- Bartering and Sharing Networks
- Bat Cloud
- Bench Press
- Better Block
- BK Farmyards
- Brooklyn Night Bazaar
- Bubbleware
- Building Projections
- Bunchy Carter Park for the People
- By the City/For the City
- Campito
- Cart Coop
- chainlinkGREEN
- Chair-bombing
- Chicago Rarities Orchard Project
- City Farm
- The City from the Valley
- City Sensing: Signal Spaces
- Cleveland Bridge Project
- Come Out & Play Festival
- Community Living Room
- Crown Heights Participatory Urbanism
- Cut.Join.Play.
- Day Labor Station
- Depave
- Dérive App
- Detroit, Demolition, Disneyland
- Dream It. Grow It.
- Eco-Playground
- Edible Estates
- Edible Schoolyard
- Edible Wall
- Faubourg St. Roch Project
- Field Guide to Phytoremediation
- Flint Public Art Project
- For Squat / Reuben Kincaid Realty
- Fresh Moves Mobile Market
- Ghost Bikes
- GOOD Ideas for Cities
- Grassroots Mapping
- Greenaid Seedbomb Vending Machine
- Guerrilla Bike Lanes
- Guerrilla Drive-Ins
- Guerrilla Gardening
- Guerrilla Grafters
- Harvest Dome
- Holding Pattern
- Hypothetical Development Organization
- I Wish This Was
- ICE-POPS
- Iluminacción
- Imagination Playground
- Imaging Detroit
- Insert____Here
- Intersection Repair
- Islands of LA
- Kingshighway Skatepark
- KISS Popup Chapel
- LA Green Grounds
- Legal Waiting Zone
- LentSpace
- LightLane
- Linden Living Alley
- Local Code: Real Estates
- Local Previews
- Making Policy Public
- Marcus Prize Pavilion
- Mobile Dumpster Pools
- Moving Design: Civic Intervention
- Museum of the Phantom City
- MyBlockNYC
- Neighborland
- New Public Sites
- NY Street Advertising Takeover
- No Longer Empty
- Notes for Anyone
- Occupy Wall Street
- OpenPlans
- Paintings for Satellites
- Parking Plot
- Parklets
- Parkman Triangle Park
- Parkmobiles
- Participation Park
- People Make Parks
- Periscope Project
- Phone Booth Book Share
- PHS Pops-Up Garden
- Piazza Gratissima
- Pixelator
- Place It!
- Place Pulse
- Placemaking in Bronzeville
- Pop Up City
- Pop Up Lunch
- Pop-Up Art Loop
- Popularise: Build Your City
- popuphood
- Post Furniture
- Power Cart
- Power House
- proxy
- PUPstop Project
- QR_Hobo_Codes
- Queens Boulevard Intervention
- re:NEWS
- Red Swing Project
- San Francisco Garden Registry
- SeeClickFix
- Serendipitor
- Skipping Only Zones
- Soil Kitchen
- Spatial ConTXTs
- Stairway Stories
- Streetfilms
- Syracuse Downtown
- Tactical Urbanism Handbook
- TrafficCOM
- Ten New Historical Markers
- TERRITORY
- TreeKIT
- Trees, Cabs and Crime in San Francisco
- The Uni
- Version Festival 12
- Visionary Chicago
- Walk Raleigh: Guerrilla Wayfinding
- War Gastronomy: Recipes of Relocation
- #whOWNSpace
- Yarnbombing
- Teams
Museum of Contemporary Phenomena
TERRITORY
Chicago
2012
Accessibility, Community, Economy, Information, Pleasure, Sustainability
5,350 materials + 18,750 teens and MCP honoraria
26 days over 6 weeks
34
Problem - lack of safe gathering spaces for teenagers
Solution - equip teenagers with design and building skills to contribute to their communities