Last Friday I attended the Rose House’s Design Charrette. I genuinely didn’t know what to expect walking into this event (especially considering I had to google the word charrette!). I suppose that in my head, I was initially picturing some sort of panel of people who were spearheading the redesign of west campus. I thought that these people would give a presentation on what they were planning to do to update west, and that they would briefly open the floor up to us residents to provide our input and feedback on their design plan. This was very incorrect, however—the actual event ended being much less one-sided than I had expected, which was definitely a very positive thing.

The event almost resembled an art show, with posters scattered about the room with different pictures of design ideas. We were asked to put small green stickers on photos that elicited a positive response, and to put red stickers on photos that did the opposite. This was a very interesting, and surprisingly difficult, exercise for me (especially as someone with very little design sense). After this, we sat at tables with a map of west campus and were asked to draw all over them what we would like to see changed. Again, having such an open-ended, free-form task was much more difficult than I initially expected.

After this, each of the different tables presented their ideas to the rest of the group. In general, there were a few common themes, the biggest of which was that there’s way too much “open space” on west. Most people wanted more gardens and seating areas. All in all it was a cool event to attend, and I hope we have more opportunities like this in the future, especially since now I know what to expect!