Kenneth Bailey
Urban designer Kenneth Bailey founded Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI) in 2005. Devoted to the improvement of civil society and everyday life, DS4SI operates at the intersections of design thinking and practice, social justice and activism, public art and social practice, and civic/popular engagement, designing and testing social interventions with and on behalf of marginalized populations, controversies, and ways of life. Bailey, who believes that public areas are places where individuals can relax and unwind or voice their disapproval with elected officials, promotes the use of symbolic demonstrations to reclaim public space that has become hostile or inaccessible to those who need it. The Studio’s “Let’s Flip It” campaign turned a symbol of Boston gang violence, baseball hats, into a symbol of nonviolence by distributing an all-white, no-allegiances hat via a youth-to- youth network. The pop-up Public Kitchen designed by the Studio was billed in part as an effort to dissociate the connotations of “cheap” and “run-down” from the word “public.”
Why we love Kenneth Bailey:
• With DS4SI, Kenneth Bailey created a communal kitchen space that re-imaged public space to include kitchens, bringing over 500 people together to share stories and recipes, and to cook
• Shifting the dialogue on gang violence is no easy feat, but DS4SI designed and distributed a neutral, no-allegiance baseball cap that turned the tables on gang affiliations
• DS4SI reclaimed public space from street violence by organizing more than 200 youth to interrupt the flow of normal life by playing massive games of hopscotch and tug-o-war