Tiny WPA

We had a great time this week beginning to prototype community message boards, small hangout space improvements and a #playcabinet with the #ralphbrookspark community and @mtwbfoundation team! Can’t wait for the next session, particularly to explore interest from kids that arose during the session in youth stewardship of the space and creating a space for young teens and older kids to hangout who are not into basketballnot just an Awsm space for reading sessions and pop-up arts and games activities. . #herofabrication #placekeeping #publicspace #designbuild #placemaking #playground #participatorydesign . @beabuildinghero @lisc_philly @olboys_world @curly.weeb @boonplatoon

Did you know that former Vaux Middle School had a multiple national championship winning chess team, ultimately winning seven Junior National Chess Championships between 1977 and 1983? The ‘Bad Bishops’ were invited to the White House and Yugoslavia and had unbroken winning streaks that exceed 85 matches. . ‘I think the chess team should be celebrated. It’s a powerful of story that should be a light for kids today. It was extraordinary. ‘Who could come from that place over th...ere? Nobody comes from that side of town.’ Out of all of the terrible things that were going on in this community, that chess team was a light. I was constantly looking in the newspaper to see what they were up to.’- Winfield, Vaux Alum. . Yesterday we had the great joy of starting our day having breakfast with a few alumni of the former Vaux Middle School, hearing Winfield, Jackie and Taha tell stories of all of the amazing things that were a part of their school community. For example, a championship winning swim team, a rich legacy of boxing, weekly dances that no other schools in the city were doing, regular assembly music performances by groups like the Skylarks (also something that set them apart from other #Philly schools). . Together we are working on creating #playeverywhere installations at the entrances to the school that celebrate the incredible legacy, achievement, commitment, and love of this school community, passing it on to the new users of the building. We really wish every morning started off this way but will settle for another round of breakfast, story gathering and design in early July. . @bsnc.engage @olboys_world . #northphilly #mikegreen #vauxmiddleschool #vauxmiddleschoolreunion #play #playground #placekeeping #placemaking See more

Her grandkids were impressively good ‘boxing with #Ali’ today @cecilbmoorelibrary but Latoya really showed everyone how it’s done today and utterly made our day. Wait for about 50 secs ingrandmothers are amazing, particularly Latoya. It was great talking Latoya and many others today about what ‘famous famous’ and ‘neighborhood famous’ people from or heavily associated with the neighborhood should be celebrated with life size playful installations in the front courtyard of @...cecilbmoorelibrary . Our team and @bsnc.engage are working hard this week to wrap up the nomination and voting process so we can move on to designing and building more permanent #playeverywhere installations later this summer. . Come’on by @cecilbmoorelibrary from 11-3 pm for their #Juneteenth celebration and to nominate/vote for a neighbor. . You can also nominate/vote using the link in our bio. . Anecdotally it’s been amazing to hear about and see firsthand how popular the ‘box with Ali’ installation has been, particularly given the neighborhood’s incredible boxing history. Can’t wait to develop a more permanent installation with whichever boxer gets the most votes! Given some of the stories we heard today about ‘how good it feels to quickly work out some frustrations’, maybe we need to do an installation with a heavy bag too?? Do all-weather heavy bags exist? . See you this Thursday, 11-3! . #northphilly #boxing #placekeeping #placemaking #grandmothers See more

Revised #littlefreelibrary in the works for our #buildyourown #publicspace toolkit and most immediately for a big order from our friends @read2succeedphilly ! Building Heroes are working hard to ‘build the factory’ to be able to streamline production but also to make them easier for EVERYONE to build. Much like @beabuildinghero team members did for the nearly 900 desks and stools they created for #Philly public school families, they are designing tools, systems of assembly, a...nd trying to develop the best possible flow of fabrication. . While we and others like our previous #LFL #design it was simply too time consuming to fabricate and the materials that we thought would be time saving (aka pressure treated for framing rather than painted wood) proved too finicky after milling. Various points of joinery and assembly then became unnecessarily difficult. We intentionally design many of our products to be ‘perfectly difficult’ to build to maximize learning, team building, memory creation, etc. but the previous design was finicky for no good reason. Thus far, everyone is super excited about the new design as it’s much easier to build, it’s iconic (which is super important for a little free library), and ‘confident’. Super excited to see the team wrap up the final design details later this week. . This sort of collaborative product development is one of the great joys in our work and frankly pretty unique with many Heroes, staff and clients or neighbors involved in this iterative process, where there is a constant conversation about or evaluation of effort’, design and utility, cost, market, educational value, etc.. We love it. Stay tuned for the final product! . And keep on rolling, @olboys_world and team. . #herofabrication #learnandearn #literacy #westphilly #4017lancaster #workforcedevelopment See more

Probably the ONLY situation where you might want to box Muhammad Ali, #JoeFrazier , #bernardhopkins, #meldricktaylor, #ivanrobinson or any other boxer with ties to the neighborhood’s incredible boxing history. Our team is still smiling from last Saturday’s workshop at @cecilbmoorelibrary , where we kicked off the design phase of the #playeverywhere project that we are working on in the courtyard with @bsnc.engage and the @freelibrary. The #muhammadali and #johncoltrane instal...lations are only temporary, intended to get neighbors nominating and voting for locally and nationally famous people from the neighborhood that they think should be celebrated with playful/interactive installations for kids and families in the courtyard of the #cecilbmoorelibrary located between 23rd and 24th on Cecil B. Moore Ave. . Thanks to Jeremiah and Journey for their awesome help with installation! . Do you or someone you know live in Strawberry Mansion/Sharswood/Brewerytown? . 1- Please go to the link in our bio to nominate and vote for who you would like to see in the Courtyard. 2- Come out to our next event on June 15th from 3-5 pm at the Library! . The @theclaystudiophl will have awesome clay-making activities for people of all ages for their #playeverywhere project inside the library on the 15th. . #northphilly #placekeeping #placemaking See more

We had a mighty amazing afternoon at @cecilbmoorelibrary really starting to get rolling with the #playeverywhere project we are working on with @bsnc.engage @freelibrary and @theclaystudiophl . Not hard to imagine why the playable temporary Muhammad Ali installation celebrating the neighborhood’s incredibly rich boxing history was so popular today. Later this summer the courtyard will be filled with 3-5 playable permanent life-size installations celebrating amazing individual...s from or deeply tied to the neighborhood. Are you from or do you live in North Philly? Nominate (or vote for) A Neighbor via the form/link in our bio! . And stop by @cecilbmoorelibrary anytime to box with Ali or hang with #johncoltrane . Take a picture and tag us and use the hashtag #goldenstrip ! These temporary installations will be up for the next couple of weeks. Our next event will be on June 15th from 3-5 pm. . #herofabrication #playfullearning #northphilly @olboys_world @beabuildinghero #placekeeping #placemaking #play #playground See more