…is practiced when architects, designers and urban planners work in solidarity with low-income communities and communities of color to ensure decisions made about the built environment are equitable and just. Read More
In Surdna’s newly released video, architects, designers and urban planners speak about the critical role of community- engaged design in creating just and equitable communities. Theresa Hwang, Executive… Read More
Kofi Boone, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at North Carolina State and active member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) offers a detailed description and reflection… Read More
This piece, woven together by design writer Diana Budds, highlights the voices of eight contemporary urban designers speaking to the issue of racial (in)equality and the built environment…. Read More
In Summer of 2016, Toni L. Griffin of Urban Planning for the American City facilitated the Designing Equity convening – an event focused on community engaged design practice… Read More
Watch this 10-minute documentary film, directed and produced by Luisa Dantas, about the community engagement process that generated the East Harlem Neighborhood Plan. The Neighborhood Plan was developed… Read More
In this 5-minute video, you’ll hear from leaders of the community engaged design field as they share deep insights about what community engaged design means to them, the… Read More
“Many of us entered this career because we see conditions of injustice. So what is the role we play as designers and planners to knock injustice down?” This… Read More
The Our Skid Row neighborhood vision plan, put forward by the residents of Los Angeles’s Skid Row, underscores the fact that some of the most relevant and innovative… Read More
This four-minute radio story, reported by Brian Naylor, highlights the work of community activists fighting to reverse the damage caused by transportation-planning decisions of the twentieth century, and… Read More
This written catalog documents the artist residency program organized by the art collective Broken City Lab and co-hosted by the People’s Emergency Center, a West Philadelphia-based community development… Read More
In this blog, Deanna Van Buren chronicles her practice as an architect and co-founder of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces, a nonprofit organization seeking to “design places that… Read More
In this article, Brentin Mock reports on a recent Rice University survey focusing on the park needs of low-income communities of color in Houston, a population largely unrepresented… Read More
Residents of the resource-starved North Shore community on the Salton Sea hope a new plan for renewal and social practice art will promise a more sustainable future. Read More
Before Hurricane Katrina, Tulane University in New Orleans was perceived by many locals as being out of touch with the “real world” concerns of the rest of the… Read More
In this brief yet robust report, Michael Rios, PhD, an associate professor of landscape architecture and environmental design at the University of California, Davis, summarizes the content from… Read More
This daylong workshop hosted by the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), in partnership with the online journalism outfit Next City, was organized to “connect activists, community organizers,… Read More
The Baltimore City Council is considering a grassroots plan that uses community land trusts, a model of ownership that protects property from speculation-driven market pressures, to address some… Read More
In this three-minute video, you’ll hear how the architect Deanna Van Buren, co-founder of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces, and collaborators from Five Keys Charter School are working to ensure that formerly incarcerated students in San Francisco County can continue their studies as they leave prison and reintegrate into their communities. Read More
Starting on page 14 of this edition of Context magazine, published by the Philadelphia chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), you’ll find insights from five members… Read More
This year’s U.S. Pavilion at the prestigious Venice Architecture Biennale aims to celebrate “the power of architecture” through a showcase of “speculative architectural projects designed for specific sites… Read More
In this four-minute piece, Kai Wright, features editor of The Nation, introduces a podcast series unpacking the “hot potato” term gentrification. The eight-week series focuses on New York… Read More
buildingcommunityWORKSHOP (bcWORKSHOP), a nonprofit committed to designing justice through community engagement, has put together a robust selection of resources on community engaged design practice across the country. The… Read More
In this article, Daniel Blue Tyx reports on the victories won and the struggles still being fought in the long-suffering colonias of the Rio Grande Valley, in South… Read More
The U.S. Pavilion at this year’s prestigious Venice Architecture Biennale featured an exhibition centered on Detroit called “The Architectural Imagination.” It was described as a showcase for “speculative… Read More
The Just City Lab investigates the definition of urban justice and the just city and examines how design and planning contribute to the conditions of justice and injustice… Read More
This article, by Lyra Kilston, discusses the evolution of Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI), a Los Angeles-based nonprofit public interest design group. In Thai, Kounkuey means “to know intimately.”… Read More
This two-minute video captures the time, energy, and creativity that residents of East Harlem have invested in setting ground rules for future development in their neighborhood. The plan… Read More
In its role as a partner in the revamping of Flushing Meadows Corona Park, the Queens Museum is modeling best practices for cultural institutions seeking to serve their… Read More
Native Americans face some of the highest poverty rates in the country. In his remarks at the 2013 White House Tribal Nations Conference, President Obama called the situation… Read More
Collaborators on this report spent eighteen months studying public plazas across New York City to answer the question, “Can the design of public space have a positive impact… Read More
In the fall of 2015, the African American Student Union at the Harvard Graduate School of Design held the Black in Design Conference. Organizers took the position that… Read More
What might a “just city” look like, and what are potential strategies for getting there? Editors of Next City posed this question to architects, mayors, artists, doctors, designers,… Read More
Following the adventures of fictional designers Dick and Rick, this booklet of colorful, tongue-in-cheek illustrations asserts the fundamental importance of process in community engaged design. Its creators are… Read More
This blog post highlights the work of the new program at the MIT Community Innovators Lab (CoLab) called Empathetic Aesthetics. Post author Allegra Williams clearly describes the non-traditional… Read More
The Association for Community Design (ACD) is “a network of individuals, organizations, and institutions committed to increasing the capacity of planning and design professions to better serve communities.”… Read More
Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) is a nonprofit design organization based in Los Angeles California. KDI’s beginnings were in serving communities abroad, but more recently, the group has shifted… Read More
In 2013, the Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship and the Fetzer Institute partnered to ask how designers can “confront physical brokenness, shape the social and community context, and allow… Read More
Recognizing that “working in the public interest is not enough,” a group of leading designers have come together to share reflections on how practitioners and firms can better… Read More
In this article read about the publicly-funded “Office of Civic Imagination” that was almost a reality in San Diego’s City Hall. Reporter Amanda Kolson Hurley clearly defines the… Read More
This article by Anne-Marie Lubenau, director of the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence at the Bruner Foundation, describes the discussions held at the 2014 Design for Equity… Read More
In this 12-minute video, Liz Ogbu describes her practice as an architect. A practice that involves “designing opportunities for impact”, not buildings. Ogbu provides a few examples of… Read More
This website describes the community-organizing, planning, and collaborative arts and culture activities taking place at Manhattan’s Pier 42, which in 2013 was transformed from a shuttered cargo pier… Read More
Theodore Jojola founded the Indigenous Design and Planning Institute at the University of New Mexico, where he is a distinguished professor in the Community and Regional Planning Program… Read More
Inspired by the New Deal-era Works Progress Administration, the Philadelphia-based nonprofit Tiny WPA organizes projects that empower youth to reimagine, redesign, and rebuild spaces at their schools and… Read More
Have you ever wondered how to create a Block Club in your neighborhood? Impact Detroit has developed a series of how-to guides covering some of the most frequently… Read More
Co-authors, Roberta Feldman, Sergio Palleroni, David Perkes and Bryan Bell, state in the opening pages that they “embarked on this investigation of public interest practices in architecture to… Read More
In the summer of 2013, the Center for Urban Pedagogy, Hester Street Collaborative, and the Community Development Project at the Urban Justice Center in New York City organized… Read More
In this 15-minute TEDx talk hear Nick Tilsen, Executive Director of Thunder Valley Community, speaks about how he and his community on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation look… Read More
The Arsenal of Exclusion: 101 Things that Open and Close the City is a catalog of the objects and policies that planners use to increase or restrict access… Read More
In Spring of 2012, a group of social impact design leaders, along with representatives from governmental, philanthropic, academic, and nonprofit sectors gathered in New York to discuss the… Read More
