We spent the day at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco today, and after a slight parking debacle (in which a poor soul’s gold Toyota RAV-4 got towed by the city), we pulled up in front of the amazing San Francisco campus building and opened our doors. In attendance were the school’s new Provost, Mark Breitenberg, “Master of Design” Arnold Wasserman, hundreds of CCA students from multiple disciplines, and even a class from University Of San Francisco who crossed the city to visit. A video and photo team representing Sappi (one of our funders, whose Ideas That Matter program supports design initiatives with social impact) was present to document the set-up and midday events.
In between multiple Whirlwind Wheelchair demonstrations, we gathered in Timken Hall for a presentation. While I had planned on doing a full-fledged PowerPoint presentation, I opted to just get up and speak, and open up a Q&A with my partner Matt Miller, who sat on stage with me in the Whirlwind Wheelchair. A great discussion ensued, which included a discussion of how to work “with” people instead of “for” clients, the importance of working locally and moving away from a trend called “Portlandism,” which a young man described as “going to where things happen.”
Following the 4pm presentation, I invited all 100 or so people to come outside to the exhibition (why present a visual presentation when the visual presentation is the trailer full of products?!). On the street, more discussions could be overheard. Students were inspired and wanted to know how they might get involved in this kind of work, and I believe I recruited a few to join our San Francisco Project H team. It was a successful day filled with inquisitive students and people from around the city who “just wanted to check it out.” We were glad to be spreading the word of great humanitarian design beyond just the school walls.