Sustainability Community Inspiration Map Workshop

Joshua Korenblat

SUNY New Paltz

SUNY New Paltz · November 14, 2025

In this two-hour workshop, students investigated campus sustainability initiatives and shared community spaces, compared their observations to SUNY sustainability goals, and identified opportunities for improvement. Using a rapid Design → Share → Remix cycle, participants create quick sketches, share insights, and remix ideas to imagine more inclusive, collaborative, and sustainable commons.

We concluded with a short reflection and uploaded sketches, notes, and takeaways to Earthrise Commons under an open license with contributor credit.

These contributions feed our concept of a Community Inspiration Map, creating remixable ideas for future teaching and community learning.

👋 We invite you to download, remix, and adapt this workshop and its resources.

KNOW

Sustainable communities depend on infrastructure and relationships. We can move from a college campus as a place of belongings to a place of belonging, as Robin Wall Kimmerer puts it in her book Serviceberry.

Third Places are Community Hubs

Sociologist Ray Oldenburg described third places as spaces where people gather outside home (first place) and work or school (second place).

Examples include cafés, parks, libraries, and student lounges. The types of places you see on a college campus!

Strong third places are: welcoming and inclusive, easy to enter and low-cost, comfortable and informal, centered on conversation and connection, and are places where people feel at home.

Third places help reduce isolation, build trust and partnerships, and strengthen our community life.

When you explore a potential third place, look for Ray Oldenburg's criteria:

• Neutral Ground: Anyone can come and go freely. No special status is required.
• Leveler: Differences in social or economic status fade; everyone is on equal footing.
• Conversation is the Main Activity: People are talking, sharing ideas, stories, and experiences.
• Accessibility & Accommodation: The space is easy to reach, open at convenient times, and meets people's needs.
• Regulars: There’s a mix of familiar faces and newcomers; the community grows organically.

Commons Thinking & Belonging

Participants also explored:

• Campus sustainability initiatives and SUNY goals
• Commons stewardship and shared responsibility
• Design for Belonging levers (space, roles, rituals, events, grouping, communication, food, clothing, schedules)
• UX research tools such as field studies, journey mapping, and storyboarding
• Together, these ideas help reveal the hidden structures that support belonging, collaboration, and sustainability.

DO

• Participants engaged in a rapid Design → Share → Remix process to explore campus commons and sustainability systems.
  Investigate
  • Observe campus spaces, sustainability features, and gathering places.
  • Identify third places (community hubs).
  • Notice who feels welcome, how people interact, and what supports belonging.
  • Compare observations with SUNY sustainability goals.
    
  Visualize
  • Create quick one-minute sketches.
  • Map community hubs and sustainability features.
  • Storyboard experiences of shared spaces.
  Collaborate
  • Share sketches with peers.
  • Remix ideas to imagine more inclusive and sustainable commons.
  • Discuss opportunities for improvement.
    
  Reflect & Contribute
  • Reflect on insights and takeaways.
  • Upload sketches, notes, and reflections to Earthrise Commons under an open license.
  • Contribute artifacts that feed the Community Inspiration Map.

BE

An attentive and considerate person in our campus community. By noticing potential third places and envisioning how they might work, look, and feel, we take some first steps in creating peace, justice, and strong institutions (UN Global Goal 16).

• Participants practice being:
  • Careful observers of place and relationships
  • Welcoming designers who notice belonging and exclusion
  • Collaborators in shared commons stewardship
  • Contributors to open knowledge and community learning
  • Hopeful agents of sustainable change