In Search of the Buried River. At the heart of the story is Mill Creek, a river that was buried in a sewer, and a West Philadelphia neighborhood that bears its name. Credit: Melissa Isidor.
Making Change: In Place Over Time
2022 Fay Chandler Creativity Grant
What does it mean for research to be racially just and restorative?
About
Anne Whiston Spirn, Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning, and filmmaker John Moody collaborate on a 60-minute film featuring personal and collective reflections on the West Philadelphia Landscape Project, an award-winning action research project founded by Spirn in 1987. The project engages MIT faculty and students in exploring how to restore the urban natural environment and rebuild low-income communities of color, simultaneously and synergistically.
More than six years in the making, the film depicts the struggle to envision and implement an integrated approach to wicked problems of pollution, poverty, and race. Design as research is featured, including the role of design thinking and design experiments, and how real-world successes and failures test and generate ideas, prompt pivots, and forge deep relationships among university and community partners.
More about the project: West Philadelphia Landscape Project
Schedule
Upcoming Event
Public Presentation of Making Change: In Place Over Time
MIT School of Architecture + Planning
Spring 2024
Collaborators
Anne Whiston Spirn, the Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning at MIT, is credited with launching the ecological urbanism movement. Since 1987, Spirn has directed the West Philadelphia Landscape Project (WPLP), an action research project restoring nature and rebuilding community through strategic design, planning, and education programs. Through experimental projects, WPLP seeks to demonstrate how to create human settlements that are healthier, more economical to build and maintain, and more resilient, beautiful, and just.
Biography: MIT Department of Urban Studies & Planning
Website: annewhistonspirn.com
Social: Vimeo
John Moody is a creative director, urban designer, and filmmaker focused on creating places of inclusion and imagination. With an approach to change that emphasizes people’s lived experiences and collective storytelling, Moody has played a pivotal role in helping designers, organizations, and cities to find hidden power in their work and to catalyze progressive transformation in their environments. He currently serves as a Senior Consultant at Arup, a global design firm.
Website: Moody.Studio
Social: iMDb | Instagram | Twitter | Vimeo
Credits
Director, Script Writer
Anne Whiston Spirn
Film and Sound Editing/Mixing, Graphics, and Color
John Moody
Supported by a Fay Chandler Creativity Grant from the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology.