1) Specific Vivid Purpose and Proposed Format

Gathering Purpose

• Gathering type

  • Food festival

  • Meeting or gathering with food

  • Listening session

  • Happy hour/focus group

  • History charrette

  • Community meeting

• Gathering purpose

  • Celebrate local food culture

  • Relationship building

  • Narratives from the community perspective

  • Explore groups thoughts on New Freedom District

  • Interact with and build bonds with community

  • Meet, get to know real people, take it all in loose + fun brainstorm, envisioning future of New Freedom District

• Basic purpose

  • Offer food access

  • Imagining a future

  • Meet and greet

  • Concept sharing and collection

  • To have educational overview of site history

  • Listen to community wants, needs,. desires to better understand immediate design opportunities

• Specific purpose

  • Identity around food culture

  • Discuss how implementations of the past can move toward a just future through planning/landscape

  • To identify sites with opportunities for design and to understand the needs of the community

  • ???

  • To create deeper understanding/definition of roots and community history to develop tighter bonds and spur future action

  • Initiate a broader set of relationships between Lancaster community and Wetizman school.

2) Invitees: Ideal Size and “Vibe” for Guests

• An engaging cocktail party with around 40-50 people as well as a pinup space for ideas and smaller group tables for discussion questions.

• Lively dinner party with around 33 people. Warm soft lighting, standing bar tables, two shared tables, a drink table, and soft dinner jazz. The idea is to spread out snacks, drinks, etc. to promote circulation amongst attendees.

• Around 30 people in a space of about 500 square feet. Of the attendees, 25 will be community members, 5 will be Penn affiliates/facilitators/listeners. The event will start as a circle group and later turn into breakout groups of 6-8 individuals and the potential for a listening booth.

• ???

• A lively 500 square foot room with about 40 people and six individuals per table to create an intimate environment.

• Lively cocktail party with around 600 square feet for a total of 60 people in which 15-20 will be Weitzman affiliates. 20-30 minutes will be for mingling and snacks, followed by an introduction with general questions, a break into small groups with a maximum of six people, and closing remarks.

3)  Priming Tactics

• Understand the feelings about those coming. Collect stories and desired activities from the community and observe old photos and objects of meaningful spaces. Additionally, the incorporation of a big base map/site model

• Emotional Objective:

  • Baseline reading. What is your opinion of the New Freedom District?

  • Listening session.

  • Achieve good flow.

  • Building visions of future implementation.

• Inspiration Objective:

  • Course brief and brochures and maps from students.

  • Too focused on school + development + New Africa vision. De-center this because it may feel loaded.

  • Desire to recover rich hidden history.

• Homework:

  • Take pictures that correlate to the prompt: What does Lancaster Avenue mean to you in one photo?

  • What is your earliest memory of this neighborhood/Lancaster Ave?

  • None in advance.

  • Think of their own history and important locations.

• Prep Work:

  • Zine of info.

  • Baked goods, carpet, printed things, nice lighting, context maps, music, drinks, markers/sticky notes.

  • Set up base map to draw on and record ideas.

  • Maps.

• Name: 

  • New Freedom Gathering.

  • Community.

  • Memory Mixer.

• Engagement:

  • Photos will be collected and shared on social media.

  • Compiled map thank you cards and polaroids for people to keep.

  • Survey at the end of the event.

4) Questions and Format for Discussion 

Questions:

• What is your relationship with history? Nature?

• What comes to mind on Lancaster Avenue?

• What is a history you would like to see define the future of the community?

• Leimert as a prompt?

• What are your favorite parts and why?

• What stores do you frequent the most?

• Where do you go in your free time?

• What is one of your favorite stories/experiences at the site?

• What new places in the neighborhood are you interested in?

• Choose a favorite place along Lancaster and tell us a story.

• What is your reaction to "New Freedom District"?

Format:

• Names in a bowl and find someone and share your answer.

• Sprout speeches.

• Different questions for each table.