Room 402.

After visiting Stanford’s d.School in July, I began thinking about how I could create spaces that were more “public” in my classroom. In the d.School studios, it was clear – without it ever being explicitly explained – that we could move furniture, use supplies, write on walls, etc. The space lent itself to being manipulated, and I never had to ask permission to use the stapler. So, I wanted to try to mimic that sense of freedom in Room 402:

• I resurfaced the whiteboard tables (thanks to a donation from IdeaPaint after I wrote to them about my tables not erasing easily enough);
• Purchased a Antonius cart from Ikea (~$60, including drawers + casters);
• Set up a supply table at the front with game design stuff (dice, cards, pieces), toys (legos, monsters), and essentials (markers, rulers, pencils);
• Hung a beautiful map of California (thanks to my dad, a geographer) on a clothesline in front of the green screen (which I’m not using as much this fall, because I’m not teaching film);
• Created a space for publicizing opportunities + events that are related to what I’m teaching now (design, game design, cartography and anthropology);
• Picked up some super strong magnets at Home Depot to post maps from An Atlas of Radical Cartography around the room;
• Adjusted the height of my tables to create higher and lower spaces, and also purchased casters that ended up being the wrong design for the table legs;
• Painted some cork trivets from Ikea for posting up projects or _______ (?);
• and have started using the language of “resetting the space” (thanks, d.School) at the end of classes when we need to put it all back together again.