Alex Shigueta: The Tasty Turtle Treat: A delicious gingerbread cake that is designed to look like many turtles swimming in plastic wrappers, to raise awareness about the widespread issue of plastic pollution in the ocean.
Over one million aquatic animals die from the 100 million tons of plastic dumped in the ocean every single year. The Tasty Turtle Treat consists of many small chocolate turtles inserted into and on top of a gingerbread mold resembling six-pack soda rings. The turtles were created by pouring liquid chocolate into a silicone mold. The Tasty Turtle Treat arouses emotions when the viewer sees the small sea turtles that appear to be swimming, inside the six-pack soda rings.
This dessert was created to put the people in the turtles' position by having to consume a dessert in the form of plastic rings. The hope is that the dissonance created between the unfortunate tale of the turtles and the great taste can resolve into feeling good about “cleaning” up the plastic mess on the plate. It would be exceptional for that wonderful feeling of consuming The Tasty Turtle Treat to translate into stopping plastic pollution and letting the turtles swim in plastic-free water.

Brief - Adam Drizen:

Mental health disorders comprise a wide range of conditions that affect the mood, thinking, and behaviors of individuals around the globe. Many people who have these issues struggle from addiction, a brain disorder that results in an urge that is hard to control or stop. The current Opioid Crisis, arising from addiction to prescription pain-relief medication, is responsible for 8% to 12% of the populations struggles with opioids.

This project addresses these heavy topics counterintuitively with a custom-designed dessert, with the goal of showing how on the outside someone may seem to be doing fine when secretly they are suffering from addiction. A cake is shaped like a pretty and pristine pod of an opium poppy flower, the species of plant that produces the poppy seeds from which opium is derived. When the cake is cut into, dark chocolate pills pour out, revealing the heavy side effects and consequences of drug addiction. The project is the perfect balance between literal and abstract, as it touches upon a severe topic affecting millions worldwide. The experience of the viewer and consumer will provide a strong insight into a major problem. As people often talk about being addicted to sugar, the dessert will help provide understanding for people with addiction.

Brief - Hagar Hirsch:

Poppy Pills is an edible sculpture that aims to raise awareness of the topic of opioid addiction, especially of the way many people affected hide their addiction due to the surrounding stigma. The dessert is made out of layers of orange-blossom sponge cake, strawberry frosting, and lemon curd, sculpted to look like an opium poppy pod. When the cake is cut open pills made out of modeling chocolate spill out from a cavity in the cake’s center. People are aware of the opioid crisis as a concept but many do not comprehend that these issues could be affecting those close to them. The National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that in 2015 around two million people suffered from opioid relates substance use disorders and that that number has only grown since. Poppy Pills’ exterior resembles the pod of an opium poppy, a flower whose seeds contain opium. This pretty exterior represents the mask that many people who struggle with addiction put on. The stigma against drug use, villainizing those who take drugs, and the criminalization of drugs can make people fear to ask for help. When cut into the cake reveals a hollow cavity full of edible pills which spill out. This shows how drug abuse can pile up as well as how bottling up one’s issues with drugs can be hurtful. The serving plate is shaped like a blooming opium poppy cut and etched out of clear acrylic, meant to mirror the flower’s beauty and how it hides something dangerous. The flavors of the cake, orange blossom, strawberry, and lemon, are meant to mirror the floral theme. The crown of the pod on top is made out of molded white chocolate and the entire cake is painted with food coloring to look more like the pod.

Julia Brief

12 by 12: A dessert consisting of 12 chocolate sculptures that represent the data of annual deaths due to police violence and are presented on an outline of a body portraying the narrative of Michael Brown. Viewers experience the stone cold statistics made vivid through the individual story of a victim of violence.

An issue society faces today is police violence, and the abuse of power by police. 12 by 12 sheds light on the issue at hand and provides an interactive experience to personalize what viewers may have become numb to. The dessert is constructed with a body outline, mimicking the chalk outlines that were used for bodies. On this body are 12 holes out of which protrude 12 graphs, made out of chocolate. These graphs create a circular formation, resembling a crown. These graphs are direct representations of the data of people killed by police in the year 2018. The platter that the dessert is served on is a body outline, representing the story of Michael Brown. Michael Brown was an 18 year old African American who was a suspect of a convenience store robbery in Ferguson, Missouri. He was fatally shot 12 times by Darren Wilson, a white police officer. Each hole in the body outline serves as a double metaphor for both the number of times Brown was shot at, and to represent the 12 months in a year.  It raises questions to authority figures, and governmental institutions. Why do we see racist patterns in people of authority? Should there be a stricter job application for becoming a police officer? It also forces people to acknowledge the prevalence of racism in our society today.

This project is made for the general public. As a common subject of debate today, this dessert is meant to educate the public on the issues, and portray an argumentative response. 12 by 12  is meant to be “used” by eating the individual chocolate graphs. The user is meant to feel uncomfortable when faced with a jarring presentation: chocolate graphs on the body outline. By entering this experience and eating the chocolate, designed to look like bullet perforations, the viewer is meant to feel even more uneasy. By doing this, we hope to instill uneasy feelings extended to police officers. The goal of this is to only slightly mimic the feelings that people of color have towards policemen.

Portfolio Day

After the Final Presentation, you have the opportunity to consider your presentation in light of final feedback and discussion. You will spend additional time reviewing you presentations, refining you portfolio, and polishing you work before it is made public on the internet.

The Self Evaluation is an opportunity for you to reflect on your work during the Studio. Students and Coaches receive the same prompts and categories, and the students will evaluate their own progress and skill levels in Design Skills and Subject Skills applicable to the studio both numerically and textually. Through a narrative, you will also reflect on the quality and rigor of your work, give feedback on the studio, and have the opportunity to receive similar feedback directly from the coach.

• Portfolio & Assessment
• Self Assessment
• Final Brief
• Portfolio Checklist
• Portfolio Boards

This game of chess represents gentrification with the chess pieces symbolizing the difference between the local restaurants and the chain restaurants.

The chain-restaurant pieces are more rigid and plain whereas the local restaurant pieces are more diverse and unique. The project exists for players to better understand the problems with chain businesses coming in and driving local businesses out. The project teaches chess players the impact of gentrification with the two sides playing against each other. The rules would be the same as in traditional chess, however, the pieces look different. We used wood and cement to create the chess pieces, 

A modified chess set that uses uniform pieces constructed with subtle tactile differences to explore the role appearance plays in human society.

Subtle Individuality challenges users by reminding them that appearances provide limited information, and a close examination of character, through personal interaction, is needed to evaluate a human being. To reflect this, at first glance, the chess set is made up of identical pieces. While every piece looks the same, the identities of the pieces must be deduced by processes more involved than simply looking. 

The set is made out of wood and employs a standard board, standard rules, and standard distribution of pieces. However, the pieces are identical in appearance. Their hollow construction allows for each piece to be filled with varying levels of either sand or metal nuts. The combination of these two variables creates a distinct profile for each of the six chess archetypes.

Instead of being able to judge the state of the board at a glance, players will have to evaluate the board by holding and feeling the pieces. The difference between the pieces can be observed through weight, sound, and impact by shaking or rolling the pieces in the player's hand. This slows down the player and causes them to give more attention to each piece, compelling them to re-examine how they evaluate other human beings during first impressions.

The work we have done in this studio has shown me a deeper meaning of the word "design." The way something is made and what it is made out of can have social and political implications without ever explicitly stating so. The way a chair is designed may express who was meant to sit in it.