Problem & Challenge

Existing research characterized low-income neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy as high-crime environments where teenagers lacked resources and engagement — but direct observation and conversation told a different story. The teenagers were articulate, active, and community-oriented. The gap between the statistics and the lived reality suggested that data was being drawn from institutional sources like arrest records rather than from the community itself — a fundamental flaw in how these neighborhoods and their young people were being understood and designed for 

• A Bed-Stuy plaza was regularly occupied by teenagers after school yet treated as a problem space by security, police, and building management

• No existing community engagement strategy centered the teenagers' perspective or asked what they actually needed from the space

• Recognized a gap between static neighborhood data and the actual lived perceptions of young people using the space daily

Research & Process

• Ethnographic observation across multiple times of day

• Surveys and informal conversations on the plaza and digitally

• Behavioral mapping — crowd composition, movement, spatial patterns over time

• Two participatory design interventions — the freewrite journal and the rap challenge

• Documented outcomes including what failed and why

Impact & Results

• Direct observation contradicted institutional narratives — teenagers were engaged, resourced, and community-oriented in ways static data failed to capture

• The journal intervention was destroyed twice, revealing real tensions in how the space was controlled and perceived by outside institutions

• Findings demonstrated that participatory, community-centered research surfaces more accurate insight than data drawn from institutional sources alone

• Proposed design interventions grounded in actual community behavior rather than assumed need