RYAN SANDWICK
**under construction**
community engager + placemaker + regeneration(er) + urban designer
Chalk and Talk
chalk and talk
I co-developed the ‘Chalk and Talk’ program to engage people in a creative and accessible way about their feelings, thoughts and views on their city’s downtown. In essence it is a way to informally gather and summarize the varying views and experiences of attendees of local festivals and events about the city while they are immersed in it. The intent is that this information can inspire dialogue and help inform the preliminary steps taken towards longer term design, planning and revitalization initiatives. Everything written or drawn on the boards during the ‘Chalk and Talk’ is photographed, transcribed and categorized according to their likeness in a spreadsheet. Once the comments are categorized by their likeness, general themes begin to emerge. These groupings of comments are each labelled accordingly and analyzed.
visual preference survey
A Visual Preference Survey allows community participants to look at a series of grouped photos and mark them based on whether the photo is Most Like Manchester or Least Like Manchester. This provides a clear understanding of which images participants were attracted to, and how they visualize the elements they would like to see downtown.
These responses directly influenced our recommendations and design for downtown Manchester based on what the community’s preferred aesthetic is. The visual preference study focused on the following themes: places, buildings, storefronts, placemaking and downtown furnishings.
visual preference surveys
visual preference survey
visual preference survey
office hours
During the last two summer internships I have led in Manchester and Harlan open office hours have been a key component of our community engagement strategy. Scheduled to be at a regularly scheduled time it was understand by our partners and larger community that they could pop into our mobile design studio to ask us questions, and to provide us with insider perspective that we otherwise would have never been able to access or understand. Office hours also allowed us to update our partners with our work to gather feedback, direction and overall input.
office hours
urban design forum
The Urban Design Forum was established to be the flagship engagement and education event for the Chattanooga Design Studio. Located at various downtown locations throughout Chattanooga in the evening. Each month a local speaker was identified to discuss a topic they were experienced in to share a fresh prospective. I was in charge of working with the speakers, in addition to organizing the location and marketing of this flagship event. The structure of the Urban Design Forum has changed in the last 2 years to be a quarterly event with national level speakers brought in.
urban design forum
friday film series
The Friday Film Series is the Chattanooga Design Studio' primary monthly engagement and education program. During the third Friday of the month a ~ 30 minute short film focusing on various urbanist issues where screened in the Studio with lunch and refreshments served. Following the film a facilitated conversation was led base don the themes discussed on the film. I led the organization, promotion and facilitation of this program during my time at the Studio.