Today, a new interactive installation near Cafe Rosso encouraged the San Francisco State University community to share their favorite spots around the city.
“I Know A Spot!” by third-year industrial design students Isaac Barajas and Max Solano has both physical and virtual components. It received an estimate 60 paper responses on its first day. It’s also available online, where it’s gotten 127 spots at the time of publication.
“I hope students step out of their comfort zone,” Solano said. “No one by any means is required or obligated to go to the spots they take, but maybe it pushes them to try a new cuisine to some degree or go to a punk rock music venue.”
The entire project is the result of less than two weeks’ work for their DES 310: Product Design I class. They had to create something that was a point of exchange for an assignment and sometimes worked into the night to get it finished.
“Both of us don’t have experience in woodworking very much, so we’re learning on the fly,” Solano said. “We don’t have a lot of time to work on these projects.”
The stand, designed to look like an easel, incorporates wood from a ladder, a poster designed by Solano and a custom pouch for pencils and paper created with canvas Barajas dyed.
Passersby are encouraged to pick up a form where they write their spot’s name and location (address if possible), the type of place and a brief description — before folding it and placing it into a box. Then, they can take another form left by someone else.
On the website, visitors enter information into a form and receive another spot. The website was created by Barajas with the help of AI.
“It’s still a little glitchy, but it takes in answers and it gives you a location, so it’s basically the same concept but in digital form,” Barajas said.
Originally, they were considering placing the stand in the library, but thought most people would just be sitting, so there might not be much student interaction. Then, they wondered about placing it in the seating area across from Cafe Rosso but realized it might be awkward for people to interact with the project close to where strangers are sitting.
“We ended up moving right adjacent to Cafe Rosso since while you’re waiting in line, it’s just kind of cool to see it,” Solano said.
The stand has attracted attention from people passing through the area, including Eurania Lopez, who is the assistant director of undergraduate admissions and recruitment. She was just getting lunch when she saw “I Know A Spot!”
“What is this doing in the middle of the cafe?” Lopez said. “It raises curiosity, and then the fact that people are stopping and doing it, I think it’s kind of great.”
Lopez believes projects like this help build community on campus and encourage students who might feel intimidated to explore new areas.
“Each neighborhood has very distinct communities, culturally diverse and some of them are just different,” Lopez said. “San Francisco State by itself — we are a community that oftentimes do not integrate into other communities.”
Preet Vithani, a fourth-year computer science student, will be going to a place in West Portal after exchanging some spots he knows.
“I was just passing by and I thought it was a really cool thing to do, so just gave it a try,” Vithani said. “It’s really cool that I can know other people’s cool spots.”
Fourth-year psychology student Ibraheem El-Mahayni was also in the area and suggested Tacos El Patron as a spot.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, so it’s kind of bizarre and out of place,” said El-Mahayni. “It’s pretty interesting — definitely engages the community, especially for those of us who are homebodies.”
Although it was envisioned as a temporary project, Barajas hopes it can remain for as long as possible.
“Seeing the turnout so far, it would be really cool if it could stay up, possibly if the school would allow it to be a stand on its own,” Barajas said.
