est. 2003
NYC
NYU LA Global Green Fellowship - Hi-Fi Speaker Design
As co-recipient of the NYU Global Green Fellowship, I had the honor and responsibility to craft an art project relating to the sustainability efforts of NYU LA. Alongside my collaborator, Max Van Hosen, we designed and engineered a sustainable audio unit using primarily recycled materials. Through this remarkable opportunity, we not only made tangible strides in promoting sustainability at the Los Angeles study away site, but also enriched our leadership skills and ability to drive positive change within the NYU community.
ABOUT
The NYU Global Green Fellowship is a selective, semester-long fellowship for one NYU LA student project created by the NYU Office of Global Programs in partnership with NYU's Office of Sustainability.
Creating a sustainable Hi-Fi listening experience
FOCUS
- Design and engineer a quality Hi-Fi speaker unit with sustainable materials
- Create a listening space that is comforting for audience members
- Provide visual documentation & aural presentation
- A professionally designed unit with a focus on build quality
- Sustainable concepts and themes directly
- Make it easy to use and manage for NYU LA staff
Product Designer
Engineer
Green speaker... Global GREEN Fellowship. You get the idea. At least it’s minty?
CHALLENGES
-
Do you know how hard it is to find a panel saw in LA? $20 smoothies and no saws :|
- Sourcing wood that isn’t cracked or warped? Hard. Sourcing recycled speaker parts in the Hollywood Hills? Even harder.
- Oh the physics...
Max and I both sketched up a variety of concepts for the speaker and we determined the roles of each other based on the direction we chose. Choosing a more basic structure for the speaker gave us more certainty in the project completion due to our lack of experimental wood cutting options. With this in mind, Max and I decided that I would lead the engineering & building responsibilities (as I have previous speaker build experience) and we would control the art direction for the surface of the unit.
For weeks, fighting the long spells of Los Angeles rain, we traveled across the city far and wide for shops with our wood panels to no avail. It took about 3 weekends of searching where we stumbled upon the good folks at Ross Alan Reclaimed Lumber who did our cuts free of charge! Once this mission was complete, the rest of the process went smoothly. We sourced old amps and speaker drivers through second hand shops and was able to use our $2,000 budget towards high quality wood stain, speaker wire, floor protection, soldering machine, and power supplies. Once all the parts were gathered, Max and I completed the unit in a single weekend, dedicating Friday to wood stain, Saturday to glueing, and Sunday to assembly.
Fortunately for Max and I, we were able to finish the project about a month before our presenation date, leaving us about a month to jam out with it in our apartment. It was the best time, we played everything from our Spring 2025 playlist and even decorated the table our piece sat on.
Outside of the physical project itself, we were expected to present on our piece in any method we wanted. Of course, we chose video.