BEST Labbers Yael Perez and Ryan Shelby, along with other members of the CARES project team won 2nd place at the Big Ideas @ Berkeley project competition within the Social Justice, Community Engagement competition category. Their project, entitled “Students-Community Collaborative Design Challenge” focused on the use of Design Challenges for providing solutions to underserved communities.

Project Abstract:
“This project will enhance community engagement on campus on three levels: practice, education, and research. A collaborative process between design students on campus, a nearby community, and CARES – a multidisciplinary team of designers and researchers – will be initiated through a design challenge, where students will offer design ideas to a real life design problem of an underserved community in need. The collaborative design process will provide ideas ready to be used by the community, real-life design experience, and a research platform for evaluating various methods for their ability to engage the community in the design process and produce more locally appropriate designs.”

You can read more about the Big Ideas @ Berkeley contest here: http://bigideas.berkeley.edu/contest

Feature photo caption: 2010-2011 CARES Team: (l to r): Ryan Shelby, Alex Kwon, Yael Perez, Tommy Liu, Cindy Bayley, Antonio Love, Stephanie Scott, Larissa Korach, Danny Wilson, and Stephen Appert