Reaching the End

It's been a great summer, but the end is just around the corner. We'll be deconstructing mini_polis beginning at 1pm on Saturday October 17th, so mark your calendars if you would like to pick up your work. Even if you didn't get a chance to add to mini_polis, you are welcome to any of the buildings that are not claimed after Saturday. Bird houses, raised-bed planters, little free libraries, bookshelves... imagine the possibilities!

Building the Base

We've made some great progress over the last week, finishing the framing and starting the concrete for the base. Below is Rick and Nate running a load of fresh concrete over to the river,

Then Hend carving in some quotes Russell collected from the audio stories into the wet concrete in the Instagram stream below.

 We can't wait to see how the river turns out!

Final Building Workshop!

Announcing the last building workshop!

We'll be on-location at the convention center plaza on June 6th to help you build the final buildings for mini_Polis before it's completed for the Northern Spark Festival. The base should be almost done, with many of the buildings from previous workshops already installed, and you'll be able to build your own new kit, or write all over any available blank buildings there.

Walk-ins are ok, but please sign up here if you think you might drop by (it's a really quick one this time, we promise).

Spaces between Buildings

Talking to folks about the mini_Polis project, we realized we were missing a part (maybe the part) of Minneapolis that makes this city great - the spaces between the buildings! We've been getting some great buildings from participants, now it's time to work on the parks and green spaces of mini_Polis in our forthcoming "How green can you get" building workshop on May 7th.

This workshop will bring together people who want to talk about their dreams for integrating nature into the city, and we'll build them into mini_Polis - modifying existing parks, adding new ones, as well as wildlife corridors, urban agriculture, and anything else you can think of.

Please sign up to attend here:

http://leonardosbasement.asapconnected.com/CourseDetail.aspx?CourseId=74221

Green Workshop Flyer

The City is Listening

Your mini_polis ideas might make it into policy!

This project is all about getting people's stories and ideas out there, but now there's a chance that they might reach decision makers at the city level. We met with the Community Planning & Economic Development department earlier this week, and they are interested in collecting people's mini_polis ideas as part of the forthcoming Downtown Public Realm Framework. No final word on this yet, but we are excited about the possibilities!

mini_polis is DigiFab!

(nerd alert) I learned a new term today called digifab, which is digitally fabricated art. It appeared in this new article called "Why MSP is Leading the New DigiFab (Third Industrial) Revolution." That's because we're using a CNC router, which is a computer controlled cutting machine, in the production of the building kits. mini_polis is DigiFab! But then we're combining this new form of production with an extremely hands-on and personal approach to building and decorating the kits with Minneapolis residents for the final installation.