Happy “Detroit Month of Design” Kickoff Day! Did you know that Detroit is the sole “UNESCO City of Design” in the United States?

Our 7th Annual Park(ing) Day “Detroit to Pontiac” Systems and Design Thinking orchestration, is featured in this year’s 13th Annual Detroit Month of Design, facilitated by Design Core on behalf of UNESCO City of Design.

This year our Park(ing) Day will feature a symposium with John Bela, the Co-Founder of Park(ing) Day, which began as an initiative of the Rebar Design Studio in San Francisco before becoming a beloved participatory urbanist event celebrated globally each 3rd Friday in September. Our good friends at Placemaking US introduced us last year while we were co-facilitating a global cohort of Park(ing) Day participants with the Tool Testing crew at Placemaking Europe. Check out his talk!

The Brightmoor Makerspace Media Team facilitated by Mike Moegelin is in the process of creating a film for the Better Cities Film Festival October 5-8, 2023. We had a truly wonderful, insightful, and “Open System” design tour of New Lab @ Michigan Central with Sakiya Duncan, their former Director of Events. The students film will feature the New Lab tour; their work to develop Stein Park in the Cody Rouge neighborhood; an engagement with the City of Detroit Strategic Neighborhood Fund for developing the the Brightmoor Fenkell Corridor; and of course they will be on-site capturing Park(ing) Day. This film will be featured in the short film block focused on Detroit stories. Opening night of the festival will be at Campus Martius this year, save the dates!

Detroit Future City published a report on the MDOT I-375 “Reconnecting Communities” project “A Call for Reparative Investment in Black Bottom Paradise Valley.”

More recently Oakland County has purchased Pontiac’s Ottawa Towers to begin re-establishing the County Seat back in its rightful place. The City also “conveyed” the Phoenix Center to Oakland County for demolition, along with all of the adjoining properties. The combined plan is to once again reconnect Saginaw to allow more cars to stream through the small walkable downtown.

We find our current Education system in the throes of a necessary radical transformation, highlighted in a Brookings Institution report focusing on the naturally occurring learning fundamentals of “Curiosity and Creativity,” while facilitated by a DESIGN THINKING JOURNEY metaphorical visual digital platform! (See 2 min video below)

“Discovery Program” brochure circa 1995 @ McMath Hulbert Solar Observatory