Aesthetica

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  Aesthetica's live community heatmap, showing aesthetic justice movement activity across the US, with Worcester, MA as the origin point.

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  Live community data -- 4 visions, 38 votes, 1 activated mandate. Every number is a resident who showed up.

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  Residents choose: AI-assisted or their own art. Describe the space, drop the vision, submit to the community. You are the author.

Inspiration

Affordable housing residents are constantly told their surroundings don't matter, that basic shelter is enough. Decades of research in urban studies, neuroscience, and the sociology of place say otherwise. A community in Worcester showed us this up close. We built the tool they deserved.

What it does

Aesthetica is a community power tool. When communities control the aesthetics of their space — when they author it, vote on it, and own it, something changes. Belonging deepens. Recovery accelerates. Organizing becomes possible. This is aesthetic justice. Residents drop a vision for their space, AI-assisted or their own art. The community votes. Hit 15 votes and it becomes a ratified community mandate. Take that mandate into any room that needs to hear it.

How we built it

Anthropic Claude API · Supabase · Vercel Serverless Functions · Leaflet.js · HTML/CSS/JS

Challenges we ran into

Full stack in one day. Serverless deployment, Supabase RLS policies, and keeping the AI framing honest — residents are the authors, AI is just the paintbrush.

Accomplishments we're proud of

A real live product with a real mission. The moment a vision hits 15 votes and flips to an Activated Mandate — that's the whole thesis made visible.

What we learned

Neglect is a design choice. Aesthetic justice isn't decoration, it's power.

What's next for Aesthetica

Worcester is the proof of concept. Every community with a housing authority that doesn't listen is the next chapter.

Built With

• html
• javascript
• supabase
• vercel