Intervention Design: Breaking the Loop
Design a real or speculative intervention into a zero-sum system from the semester, and defend that it changes the mechanism rather than the paint
Due: 28 May 2027 · Weight: 60%
The brief#
Take one zero-sum system from this semester and design an intervention that would actually shift its equilibrium, not just redistribute its pain.
Build on the draft from week 11’s studio and the room’s feedback from the final crit. A realistic scope for the time available is one system, one mechanism, one intervention — argued precisely — rather than a survey of everything covered this semester.
What you submit#
The intervention design itself (written, or another format if it fits the proposal better), plus a short justification connecting it explicitly to the mechanism it targets and naming who bears the cost if it works.
The spec
The brief poses the problem and leaves room for a response. The spec is the fixed part: what a marker checks. Some lines can be checked mechanically; the rest call for judgement.
- submitted by the deadline, in the format named below
- it stands on its own, without you there to explain it
- it names the mechanism it targets and the system it's drawn from
- it says who loses if the intervention works, and whether that's acceptable
How it is marked
The final project is judged as a whole against the brief, with particular attention to whether the intervention targets the mechanism identified in weeks 1-10 rather than one of its symptoms, and whether it honestly names who bears any cost of it working.