Design for Equity is a day-long curriculum exploring how racial and social inequity are manifested in urban planning and the built environment, and the tools designers and practitioners can develop to promote more just and inclusive communities.
This topic has never been more salient for the City of Boston. The Mayor’s Office of Resilience and Racial Equity, supported through the work of the 100 Resilient Cities Initiative, recently declared racial inequity as a pressing resilience issue facing the city. In October, this group will be making recommendations to the Mayor, and moving into a next phase of implementation.
The Design for Equity curriculum addresses the history and legacy of racial inequity in the built environment as created through urban design, zoning, policy, planning, and financing. The day will feature leading practitioners and academics on equity and the built environment, who will explore how design and planning can promote racial equity through existing processes, and perhaps reveal new approaches to our work. Participants will cultivate new ways to think about the roles that private, public and community stakeholders can play in achieving more equitable outcomes in their work.
The learning from the day will be developed and tested through a hands-on application at the Design for Equity charrette the following day.
Welcome and Opening Remarks (8:30 AM – 9:00 AM)
Tamara Roy, Principal, Stantec; 2016 BSA President
Katie Swenson, Vice President for National Design Initiatives, Enterprise Community Partners
Atyia Martin, Chief Resilience Officer, City of Boston
Keynote (9:00 AM – 9:45 AM)
Hyeok Kim, Deputy Mayor of the City of Seattle
Truth and Reconciliation: Owning Our History (10:00 AM – 10:30 PM)
Speaker: Alex Von Hoffman, Senior Fellow, Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University
Inequity Meets the Ground: Local Stories (10:30 AM – Noon)
Moderator: Ceasar McDowell, Professor of the Practice of Community Development, MIT
Panel:
Jim Vrabel, author, A People’s History of the New Boston
Iván Espinoza Madrigal, Executive Director, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Economic Justice
Suzanne Lee, educator, Boston Public Schools; community leader
Additional panelists TBA
Lunch (12:00 PM – 1:00 PM)
The State of Equity: What Does Current Data Say? (1:05 PM – 1:30 PM)
Speaker: Alvaro Lima, Director of Research, Boston Planning and Development Agency
Designing for Equity: Taking Action (Pecha Kucha Presentations) (1:30 PM – 3:30 PM)
Presentation block one: Bringing equity to our profession
Dana McKinney, MArch/MUP student, African American Student Union, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Kordae Henry, Associate Designer, MASS Design Group
Presentation block two: Changing processes and conversations
Allan Co, Enterprise Rose Fellow
Braden Crooks, Co-Founder, Designing the WE
Quilian Riano, Founder and Principal of DSGN AGNC
Presentation block three: Systemic change
Emmanuel Pratt, Loeb Fellow; Executive Director, Sweet Water Foundation
Ayako Maruyama, Creativity Lab Design Lead, DS4SI (Design Studio for Social Intervention)
Closing Remarks: Katie Swenson, Vice President for National Design Initiatives, Enterprise Community Partners
Design for Equity continues on Wednesday 16 November
*Design for Equity endeavors to be accessible to all. If cost is a barrier to attendance, please contact Elliya Cutler at ecutler@architects.org for scholarship opportunities.