the joint shadow
Related Books:: Un-Lonely Planet We Should Get Together The Art of Flaneuring: How to Wander With Intention and Discover a Better Life The Art of Gathering
A sharp purpose is the backbone of a good gathering
Understanding that purpose and the desired outcome should be done before any kind of format is defaulted to
Red Hook Justice Center - Case Study (Brooklyn, NY )
The community wanted to re-define what the justice system looked like. By re-defining the court as a problem solving laboratory and not a place to convict allowed the participants to break out of the mental model of what a court is.
Radical changes, even to the architecture, were made including seating the judge at eye level, changing the color and material of the 'courtroom', allowing personal contact between defendant and judge, making room for appreciation of progress.
"Thinking of the place as a laboratory frees the people at the Justice Center to be great gatherers. “There are no lines in our head about how we should gather or what it needs to look like,” Berman told me. “Every case and every client is looked at individually.” This attitude allows them to separate their assumptions of what a court proceeding should look like from what a proceeding could look like."
Additionally because of the more elaborate options and processes available when verdicts are forced to become punitive they typically are twice as harsh.