<CITIZEN FIRST>

As Citizen Designers will work alongside emerging designers and community leaders, we will impact our urban space, visually, socially, and physically. Using creativity, design, and hand-to-hand experiences as a tool for transformation and social change.

<BACKGROUND>

In 1963, the manifesto "First Things First" was drafted (published in 1964) as a call to action for the design community to responsibly make a transition towards the more humane aspects of practice. This call promoted the awareness of the designer’s roles in complex processes that surpassed the current practice, inviting a reordering of priorities and a cessation of practices that ensured a detrimental future for society. The "First Things First" manifesto was revised in 2020, presenting a compelling scenario and demanding action, especially in the face of the widespread crises we are experiencing. Aligned with our times, the urgent need for a paradigm shift is once again raised, a systemic transition in the practice of designers (citizens). Designers, aware of their role in society as agents of change, must approach this with thoughtful reflection on their practice and take an active role in their communities. This document is accompanied by specific actions, of which I highlight the following:

• We must support community-based efforts to advance and promote justice, healing, co-existence, and mutual respect. 

• We must reverse our profession’s priorities in favor of more inclusive, empathetic, and engaged forms of action — a mind-shift that goes beyond sustainability — towards regeneration, exploration, and co-creation of a non-exploitative, non-appropriative set of social-environmental relations.

• We must direct our skills for the betterment of humanity toward a more ecological civilization.

• All of these principles should be integrated into multidisciplinary design education.

Several years ago, I participated in the design of the Citizen Science project for Para la Naturaleza. Since then I always had the intention or interest of creating a similar project related to designers serving their communities and promoting social change.

<Personal Story>

I was raised in Tomás de Castro, a neighborhood located on 15th Street in a sector called Villas de Castro, just on the outskirts of Caguas, Puerto Rico. Caguas is a valley situated in the east-central zone of the island and is known as the Heart and Soul of Puerto Rico. The 15th Street was my home, my starting point from which I cycled through the city's different neighborhoods. Growing up between sports, art, and graffiti I always perceived these spaces around me as a playground. 

As I became a designer, I acquired professional experience in San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. Thereafter, I was asked to return to Caguas to become an adjunct professor (2016).

Subsequently, I established the space 404 Coffee & Beers. In many ways, this project has been my groundwork & safe place to co-create with our community in this time of crisis.

Being witness to the deterioration of urban centers, due to the crisis that the island is going through establishing 404 Coffee & Beers in the city center required commitment and a call to action to provoke change and cultivate a supportive, vibrant, and dynamic community.

Our neighbors are schools, museums, churches, merchants, and service institutions.

Among them, you will find community-based projects, such as Boutique Comunitaria, Urbe Apie, and El CAM, among other entities that configure “La Cuadra Social”.

There are also multiple faith-based organizations like CORMA (UNITED WAY AFFILIATED NGO) from Primera Iglesia Bautista de Caguas (CHURCH).

The Boriken District Boy Scouts of America troops.

A cluster of schools beginning with EBATEC specializing in art and technology (middle to high schools), José Gautier Benitez High School (one of the oldest in Puerto Rico), Gerardo Sellés Solá Middle to High School technology specialized school, and Luis Ramos González High School.

Also in superior education, we have the CCAT offering courses on sound engineering, production, filming, and photography, right at the corner of the street we will find Inter Caguas University.

<PROFESSIONAL JOURNEY>

I started out as a young artist creating a community project that revolved around Hip Hop culture called La Expo, which ran for four years. This experience served as my initiation into cultural sector and allowed me to grow as a creative leader, by achieving collaboration between the residents, artists and municipality, with the purpose of transforming and activating the spaces we transit and inhabit while promoting appreciation of different outlets of expression.

This period trained me in multiple areas among which I can highlight:

1. Mentor 2 to 4 internship students per semester starting in 2016, helping them define and develop their careers.

2. Developing networks and relationships to contribute and incorporate into the project include academic community leaders, members of the municipal government, and creative and cultural organizations.

3. Understanding the challenges that community projects face to be effective in their project efforts.

4. Understand the challenges of young creators who are aspiring to consolidate their professional careers.

5. Experience in community-based projects like Citizen Science, Ciencia CoLab, Aquí Nos Cuidamos and Adopta un Niño.

6. Experience in art-related events or projects connecting the dots.

This will be the first phase of found > nation.

A dream of creating a space that allows (bring in) young professionals to create projects, spaces, and experiences as a tool for creative transformation, and cultural and identity reaffirmation.

It is the reflection of what I aspire for my country, a contemplation about constant search, finding each other, discovering who we are, and how all of these systems that confound our realities function. As long as the search for what we want for ourselves is a reflection, a demand of what we thrive for on our island, we will be able to define and implement our proposals with actions. Achieving this project would integrate members of the 404 team, the support of the TEMBOL design studio, and the possible collaboration of multiple organizations with whom I currently collaborate on projects, among which I can highlight the Centro de Economía Creativa, Escuela de Industrias Creativas (USC), Escuela Internacional de Diseño (UAGM). 404 Coffee & Beers would have the role of meeting space, while team members can become participants and resources. TEMBOL would provide experience throughout the process as mentors in the projects we aspire to create. On the other hand, an alliance with the institutions would allow us to diversify and amplify the pool of candidates who can be part of the program as active members or volunteers.

It is up to us to create competence in the new generations of designers and communicators who can vehemently assume the challenges that we face in society, particularly the way in which it is amplified in the period of crisis that Puerto Rico is going through. Those that we manage to impact will become resources for other projects and organizations in the future.

EXISTING RELATIONSHIPS

Local Government's existing relationship with:

Economic Development Office | Caguas Tourism Office | Caguas Culture Office

ASPIRING RELATIONSHIPS

Government relationship (aspiring relationships):

Self-sufficient Communities Office | Public School José Gautier Benítez | Public School Selle Solá

Academic institutions with existing relationships:

Escuela de Industrias Creativas (USC) - University

Escuela Internacional de Diseño (UAGM) - University

Community-based organizations with existing relationships:

Urbe Apie | Boutique Comunitaria

Non-Profit-related organizations with existing relationships:

Creative Economy Center  (501c3)

Centro Criollo de Ciencia y Tecnología del Caribe (501c3) 

Milagros de Amor - United Way (501c3) 

Ciencia Puerto Rico - Public Engagement Unit (501c3) 

Creative Studios with existing relationships:

Mampostea’o - Building Brands & Connections

TEMBOL - Design Process & Exhibitions

Estudio Interlinea - Exterior Signage & Wayfinding 

Mara Robledo - Meta Design 

Academic institutions (aspiring relationships):

Colegio de cinematografía y arte - Filmmaking College

Community-based organizations (aspiring relationships):

Centro de Apoyo Mutuo CAM | Caguas Boys Scouts

Creative Studios (aspiring relationships):

La Maraña - Participatory Design and community outreach

Terra Firma - Maps Software Puerto Rico StarUp

Partners Collaborators (aspiring relationships):

Bulbond (Construction, Paint & Other)

Wynwood Brewery (Workshops)

Outline a proposed timeline and total budget for this project.

This 12-month design timeline outlines the process of transforming the urban space, engaging the community, and creating a revitalized area that fosters connection and pride.