SEED LAB: Solutions for Energy and Equity through Design
ART AND PUBLIC POLICY BLEND IN A NEW INITIATIVE TO ADDRESS ANCHORAGE’S ENERGY, EQUITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES
November 07, 2018
The Anchorage Museum, in partnership with the Municipality of Anchorage and support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, is collaborating to develop innovative approaches to persistent equity, energy and other challenges facing Northern communities.
The partnership will yield an innovation laboratory merging design and community development to create "Solutions through Energy, Equity and Design" (SEED). The SEED Lab will partner artists, designers, engineers and community members to prototype ideas, experiment with possibilities, enhance urban identity and inclusivity and generate public-private collaborative solutions that break down obstacles to civic engagement.
Anchorage is the gateway to America's Arctic and home to some of the most ethnically diverse schools and neighborhoods in the U.S. The climate is changing at twice the rate of other regions in the world, and we are facing economic transformations as the state weans off oil revenues as the primary source of revenue.
We have the opportunity to entrench equity and innovation into the solutions we craft to thrive through demographic, social, environmental and economic change. The SEED Lab will facilitate that innovation through multi-sector and community partnerships, driven by the power of design and informed by multiple voices and shared vision.
Among the Lab’s approaches will be repurposing an empty building in the city’s emergent Design District, creating multi-use spaces out of the area’s surface parking, and regenerating structures while factoring in landscape and future usage.
Artists, designers and engineers will activate the projects through a series residencies focusing on fostering solutions to problems faced by our diverse and pluralistic city.