James Rojas

John Kamp

People love their communities and want them to become safer, healthier, more prosperous places. But the standard approach to public meetings somehow makes everyone miserable. Conversations that should be inspiring can become shouting matches. So what would it look like to facilitate truly meaningful discussions? What if they could be fun? For twenty years, James Rojas and John Kamp have been using art, creative expression, and storytelling to shake up the classic community meeting. In Dream Play Build, they share their insights into building common ground and inviting active participation among diverse groups. Their approach, "Place It!," draws on three methods: the interactive model-building workshop, the pop-up, and site exploration using our senses. Inspirational and fun, this book celebrates the value of engaging with the dreams we have for our communities.

Hands-On Community Engagement for Enduring Spaces and Places

Dream Play Build

The room is dim, the chairs are in perfectly lined rows. The city planner puts up a color-coded diagram of the street improvement project, dreading the inevitable angry responses. Jana loves her community and is glad to be able to attend the evening meeting, and she has a lot of ideas for community change. But she has a hard time hearing, and can’t see the diagrams clearly. She leaves early. It’s time to imagine a different type of community engagement – one that inspires connection, creativity, and fun. People love their communities and want them to become safer, healthier, more prosperous places. But the standard approach to public meetings somehow makes everyone miserable. Conversations that should be inspiring can become shouting matches. So what would it look like to facilitate truly meaningful discussions between citizens and planners? What if they could be fun? For twenty years, James Rojas and John Kamp have been looking to art, creative expression, and storytelling to shake up the classic community meeting. In Dream Play Build, they share their insights into building common ground and inviting active participation among diverse groups. Their approach, “Place It!,” draws on three methods: the interactive model-building workshop, the pop-up, and site exploration using our senses. Using our hands to build and create is central to what makes us human, helping spark ideas without relying on words to communicate. Deceptively playful, this method is remarkably effective at teasing out community dreams and desires from hands-on activities. Dream Play Build offers wisdom distilled from workshops held around the world, and a deep dive into the transformational approach and results from the South Colton community in southern California. While much of the process was developed through in-person meetings, the book also translates the experience to online engagement--how to make people remember their connections beyond the computer screen. Inspirational and fun, Dream Play Build celebrates the value of engaging with the dreams we have for our communities. Readers will find themselves weaving these artful, playful lessons and methods into their own efforts for making change within the landscape around them.

Robert Button

James Dryden

Thomas B. Curtin

Which military missions for unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) appear most promising to pursue in terms of military need, operational and technical risks, alternatives, and cost? To answer this question, the authors assess risks associated with using UUVsfor advocated missions, identify non-UUV alternatives that may be more appropriate for such missions, and analyze potential costs associated with UUV development and use. They conclude that seven missions: mine countermeasures, deployment of leave-behindsurveillance sensors or sensor arrays, near-land and harbor monitoring, oceanography, monitoring undersea infrastructure, anti-submarine warfare tracking, and inspection/identification - appear most promising. Among other recommendations, the authors suggest that the U.S. Navy consolidate its unmanned system master plans and establish relevant priorities in coordination with the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Increased emphasis on the use of surface platforms rather than submarines as host platformsis recommended.

John Kamp

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