Design Brigade
The Design Brigade was a ten-week summer internship for Yale students to solve problems related to COVID-19. The internship was conceived in the spring of 2020 as a collaboration between the Yale Center for Collaborative Arts and Media and Atelier Cho Thompson, a multidisciplinary design firm with an office in New Haven, co-founded by Yale alum Ming Thompson. The summer interns worked together in teams to design a solution to a new spatial problem that has emerged as a result of COVID-19.
Three unique challenges were posed to each of the teams: On Memory, On Family, and On Learning. The On Memory group worked with the City of New Haven to design a proposal for a memorial to commemorate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the people of New Haven. The On Family group worked to design a solution to facilitate family visits to the Tower One adult living facility in New Haven. The On Learning group worked with organizations to bring in-person educational opportunities from New Haven’s cultural institutions to neighborhoods throughout the city.
For more information about the Design Brigade, please visit the Design Brigade Website.
Each week the students posted their progress and documentation to the Medium.com Design Brigade page, follow their process here.
The project included over 30 mentors and advisors; a significant amount of feedback from the New Haven community; and a real-world experience for students created by our generous clients.
Final Project PDF’s