We’re going to Lebanon!
We knew from the beginning of the City X Project that we wanted to run our workshops on the ground in approximately eight cities around the world, but we didn’t have anything more than a vague notion of what those countries would be.
Celebrating our trip to Lebanon with a sampling of Lebanese coffee in downtown San Francisco.
Now, we’re taking off in a big way as we head to our first international destination: Beirut, Lebanon.
In partnership with the MENA Design Research Center and as a part of Beirut Design Week, the City X Project workshop will be run with 32 Lebanese kids during the week of June 23.
Taking our workshop abroad and testing it across cultures not only helps us build the best, most adaptable educational model possible, it also adds to our global documentary project exploring what a shared vision of the future looks like across cultures. We believe creativity and imagination are the foundation of future building. By providing children around the world with new tools for sharing we emphasize the importance of global collaboration paired with understanding of differing perspectives. This first international workshop will enable City X to explore how hopes and assumptions differ between eight-year-olds in Appleton, Wisconsin, and eight-year-olds in Beirut, Lebanon.
We couldn’t be happier about working in conjunction with Beirut Design Week. Design Week is hosting a competition asking the simple question, “What will Beirut look like in 77 years?” The kids in our workshop could be designing 3D models for Beirut just as well as City X.
We don’t know yet what we’ll learn or discover, but we do at least know that we love Lebanese coffee, and we’re looking forward to sharing our adventure in the Middle East!
