“spring street forever” Research Methodology Assignment
Design & Urban Ecologies Methods II Course Exercise — Parsons School of Design, The New School
Spring 2024The assignment was to create a project on any community demonstrating principles of a prefigurative political community or urban space reclamation using methodologies we had discussed in class. My partners and I chose to conduct a mini oral history on the skating community of NYC, focusing on a particular skate spot called Spring Street, or the curbs, as it’s also referred to by local skaters. One of my partners lived near this spot and noticed how the skaters seemed to face no opposition from police even when moving cones and other makeshift barriers to block off the street in order to skate. We wanted to investigate how this was the case, how these skaters seemed to reclaim urban space with little resistance and what the origins of this interesting dynamic were.
Project Duration: ~3 weeks
Tools: Adobe Premiere Pro
Developed in collaboration with Avery Crower and Lauren Leiker
Course Instructor: Jilly Traganou