What Do We Do?

While the group is off in Kokata, Christian and I, two studio members are on other missions. I will be staying in Providence and working on a piece of the project stateside - more on that later. In the meantime, I sent in a proposal to the What Do We Do? project that RISD is hosting - it's really a forum for RISD students, staff, faculty, and alum to share what they do to the community. To be able to share our project would not only provide a great opportunity to get the word out about our work but could perhaps create more exchange that could benefit the project.

I sent in the proposal a couple of days ago but thought I'd share it here so that others could get a sense of what we are doing...here goes...

We are inquisitors. We are learners. We are educators. We are makers of change. We are artists and designers. We are global citizens. We are RISD supporting sustainability and honoring individuals in our 21st Century world.

We are a team of 55 undergraduate, graduate students, and three professors from nearly every discipline at RISD and a few from Brown. We are working as an interrelated dynamic system of researchers, examiners, designers, and explorers through three courses and one trip to Kolkata (Calcutta), India.


The courses in the Kolkata constellation consist of three parts. Two of the courses are incorporated in Narrative Flows: Waters of Faith, Identity and Sustenance which take the form of a Landscape Architecture Urban Systems Studio and an English seminar. The third part of the constellation is collaboration with the Design for Development graduate seminar. The foci of the project are water’s role in the life and culture of Kolkata and sustainable urban livelihoods integrating cultural and ecological systems. The project, sponsored in part by the RISD Koybo Fund was spearheaded by Elizabeth Dean Hermann, professor in the Landscape Architecture department. Nick DePace, professor of Architecture and Jonathan Highfield, Head of the English department are co-teaching with Lili.

The primary group that would like to present for What Do We Do? is the studio class. The class’s work is focused on the Kalighat neighborhood in Kolkata, India which runs along a canal following the original course of the local branch of the Ganges.

The Plan: Design a new tourism retreat and community center along the canal which will be owned and operated by a neighborhood cooperative. The retreat will offer an opportunity for eco-tourists to visit the city and will provide a resting place for those on their way to the Sundarbans, Bhutan, and Nepal. It will also provide locals with the opportunity for self employment and will include a training institute focused on entrepreneurship, sustainable building, water management practices, and urban agriculture; a literacy program, local histories archive; and an incubator for new spin-off businesses. The project will be a model for sustainable urban living and whenever possible, the resources needed to run the retreat – food, energy, waste, and water will be produced, managed, and re-used on site.


Up to this point, the studio course has been asked to create an atlas that relates to our site in Kalighat. We have developed and created conceptual, analytical maps through conventional and non-conventional means of mapping. The maps for the atlas are divided into eleven categories that relate to the varying scales critical for out site. They refer to such topics as “Digestive” with its exploration of inputs and outputs, Diurnal Cycles, Land and Water Interface, the Phenomenological and more.

The atlas was created in such a way that it can be tested and reworked over the Spring Break when the studio course and a few extras from the other two courses (thirty in total) head to Kalighat. The atlas will be presented to the American Center on March 27th to representatives of various sectors in Kolkata as well as to the US Consul and the press, to whom we are hoping to offer a different perspective of their country, region, city, and neighborhood. We are also looking to receive more information and feedback that will help us respond to and benefit the community through design as well as serve as a catalyst for city-wide improvements.

We have a blog that is currently documenting our work. The link it: http://risdkolkata.blogspot.com/