Eggi & Girls Write Now Team Up to Talk Design

The Collaboratory is our creative home, our national headquarters in the heart of New York City’s Garment District. It’s also a virtual hub for members across the country. With a new long-term lease and upgrades underway, it’s in many ways a blank slate. We wanted the people who use it to help shape what it becomes: a home for writers across generations and disciplines in the next era of Girls Write Now.

The evening brought designers, mentees, and members into the same room. Five mentors for the day talked about the through line of writing in their work:

Elisa Kim, founder of Eggi Magazine, who brought the panel together;
Lila Allen, founder and editor of Wrong House;
Wengelyn Muñoz, architectural designer at CTA Architects D.P.C.;
Suzanne LaGasa, founder of ProtoToto Design Lab for Kids; and
Jenée-Daria Strand, assistant curator at Public Art Fund.

After a tour of the space, everyone got to work. First, each person named three things they would reimagine in the Collaboratory, from something as simple as getting rid of a file cabinet to something as fantastical as buying a printing press. Then, in a mini charrette (a short, hands-on design sprint), groups combined their lists into one shared vision of the space, with pens and markers in hand.