Chloe Cross

Dr. Yoachim
Weekly Assignment #5
10 November 2016
Blue Trees Project
To start off, I just want to say that participating in the Blue Trees project was an amazing
experience that was very therapeutic and eye-opening for me. Thank you for providing us with
the opportunity to participate in such an awesome and creative project. Before we helped with
the project, I was feeling stressed out about school and wasnt really thinking about the project. I
felt excited to paint trees, but I didnt really understand the scope of it. Whenever we got there
and began talking to Mr. Dimopoulos, I started to feed off of his amazing energy and became
inspired and much more passionate about the project. Whenever we were painting the trees, I
started to see how big of an impact it actually has. Painting trees blue sounds kind of silly, but
hearing the girls on the GPS bus that drove by exclaim about the trees and ask questions to each
other really showed me how the trees can start conversations and questions in a community.
Googling blue trees Chattanooga gives so much information about the project and takes
seconds to do.
All of that to say that participating in the Blue Trees project really showed me that there
are so many untraditional and creative ways to make a cause known and to define a space. It
makes me wonder if we could use something like the blue trees to connect campus to downtown.
Could we draw attention to spaces of particular interest to UTC students using something

outlandish like the blue trees? Or change the perception of safety downtown? If there was an
easily accessible visual of where crime takes place in the city, would people feel differently
about safety, and what would the visual show?
The thing that the Blue Tree project changed for me in regard to the design thinking
process is how crazy your solutions can be. If we were going by the scientific method, nobody
would ever think to bring up painting trees, or if they did think of it, they would probably dismiss
it. With design thinking, these ideas are given a chance. Whenever you are encouraged to throw
everything out there in a safe, judgement-free zone, there is the potential to come up with
revolutionary ideas such as this. I am so excited to get to this stage of the design thinking process
and see where we end up.