Insights, the Tenderloin invites the public to explore how a place might inspire design. An interactive map installation, created as part of the dMedia project at Stanford’s d.school, invites individuals to look into the Tenderloin and discover their own insights about one of San Francisco’s most dense and diverse neighborhoods.In April 2010, The dMedia project challenged students to create a game inspired by San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. A game? The Tenderloin? Does this assignment invites trivialization of real challenges faced by the area? Yet, after delving into elements of game design and the motivational processes behind participation and gaming, students confronted this multi-faceted assignment, feet first.

dMedia students spent a week discovering the stories, individuals, and artifacts that make up the Tenderloin. They captured insights with images, sketches, and text, which they geo-located on a co-created, media rich map. Students built off of their insights to design five prototypes of games – some Tenderloin-specific, others sparked by findings in the Tenderloin. The games addressed such questions as: How might individuals find and co-create stories with the located objects they encounter? Can a game encourage players to open their eyes and see a place in new ways? How might small encounters foster interpersonal connections?

the d.media project : Media that Matters

However you choose to describe it — a shift from a consumer culture to a creative society, a tendency toward more mediated and less face-to-face communication, the dawn of social media and the collapse of institutions — our world is changing Media is no longer just a communication tool. It is a vehicle for creative, community participation and therefore, social change. We believe that media designers have the opportunity and responsibility to make this change positive.

Team Information

The d.media project is a growing community of people and projects at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design @ Stanford University, where students & faculty work together to discover the underlying frameworks of the new media landscape and apply these learnings in the design of media experiences that have a positive social impact.

Our World is Changing : What are You Going to Do About It?

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