What do Tokyo and Brownsville, Brooklyn have in common?

How can we apply the tenets of "Behaviorology" - the interplay of people, nature, and buildings - to change social conditions?

How does the built environment shape community and create culture, and what are the responsibilities of architects and designers in making positive change?

Get inspired during a lively discussion addressing questions like these with the brilliant Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, Associate Professor of Tokyo Institute of Technology and Architect and Co-founder, Atelier Bow-Wow and the inspiring John Peterson, Founder & President of Public Architecture. Tsukamoto and Peterson will each describe the social perspectives of their work, and through a moderated discussion (with me), we will explore how to apply their concepts to the real-world Brownsville neighborhood in Brooklyn. Brownsville has the highest concentration of public housing in the U.S. and more than half of the residents live under the official poverty line. (Remember learning about master builder/neighborhood destroyer Robert Moses in school? Yep, this is his handiwork.)

Hosted by the Japan Society in partnership with the Designers Accord, Common Ground Community, the Brownsville Partnership, and GOOD magazine, this public symposium is part of a two-day charrette, bringing together designers and social entrepreneurs from the U.S., Japan, Thailand and Vietnam to explore how design can contribute to solving challenging social problems. The goals of the charrette are to generate ideas that can be implemented in the shorter term to help with the process of change in Brownsville, and to document our social innovation design process so that others can use the model in their own work and build on it further.

The details: Japan Society Tuesday, November 2, 6:30pm - 8pm

Buy Tickets Online or call the Japan Society Box Office at (212) 715-1258, Mon-Fri 11am-6pm, Weekends 11am-5pm.

Japan Society is located in Manhattan at 333 East 47th Street between First and Second avenues (accessible by the 4/5/6 at 42nd Street-Grand Central Station or the E and V at Lexington Avenue and 53rd St.