Mixplace Studio

Mixplace Studio is an urban education model that responds to the crisis in community participation and political representation. The Studio enables conversations between individuals and institutions within West Philadelphia and circulates different ways of thinking and making, linking the knowledge of communities with the knowledge of institutions.

People's Emergency Center (PEC), Slought, and PennDesign are the primary Philadelphia institutions who are coming together to form this urban education model, in partnership with Teddy Cruz and the Center for Urban Ecologies at the University of California, San Diego. The primary collaborators are neighborhood youth researchers and university design students, who are interacting with a diverse floating faculty of community organizers, designers, researchers, and other professionals. The activities and protocols of the Studio are guided by a steering committee, whose permanent and rotating members represent each constituency involved.

Mixplace.org, the Studio's website, is developing according to the following principles:

— To guide and document the studio's activities.
— To amplify the studio's activities by further bridging neighborhood and institutional knowledge.
— To mobilize the studio's activities and resources within the community.