WILDER Compound began in the spring of 2014, a series of 6 self-reliance skill-building workshops for Syracuse University students and local high school students. We built a claypot oven, bike-powered phone chargers, planters made from recycled materials and a geodesic dome greenhouse. We learned bike repair, community organizing and how to start seedlings. I developed the concept for the series and designed the visual elements used for banners, workshop materials, website, announcements, t-shirts and eventually a handbook. See more at www.wilder.is.
At the end of the workshop series. we celebrated with a DIY festival where we showed off the dome and our bike-powered phone chargers, silk screened WILDER t-shirts, had a potluck and played games to learn more about the people in the community and what kind of food traditions we share.
Working on the dome.
Students fabricated the pieces needed to build the dome.
Remnants of Chilewich outdoor fabric as well as recycled recessed lighting cans came in handy for designing and building hanging planters. The above cone design was created by the students through material exploration and input from the farmers.
Chicken wire and Chilewich fabric were used to create vessels for plants.
Architect Kelley Sullivan who worked with WILDER to design the geodesic dome greenhouse. Finishing the sturdy covering for the dome sealed with metal tape.
A repurposed terra cotta planter becomes a small oven for baking bread.
Seeds were started and sprouted to be transplanted into the geodesic dome greenhouse at Southwest Community Farm
Using a tutorial from MAKEzine, students worked with components from Radio Shack to create bike-powered phone chargers.
Local bike shop Mello Velo came by to lead us in a basic bike maintenance workshop.
At our very first workshop, we learned about community organizing and web design. Along with community organizer Molly Rose Kaufman, I led a workshop teaching some design basics and how to use Squarespace. We played a Spirit Animal Celebrity game, created a mind-map that became an interactive installation for visitors to our HQ at the afterschool program 601 Tully, and the students designed a temporary library for the WILDER book collection using remnants of Chilewich fabric.
