Design Justice: Starting the Conversation on Social Justice and Equity in the Built Environment
Starting the conversation on social justice and equity in the built environment.
“We need to adopt a new role as a facilitator, not the all high and mighty practitioner that knows best. We need to be humble. We need to be vulnerable. We need to be willing to step down and recognize that the skill sets lie in leading teams through the design process. We need to elevate the voice of others. Now that is Design Justice. ”
- Elizabeth Lockwood
Overview
Design Justice is the intersection of race, culture and architecture.
Black leaders across the nation are calling upon white communities saying, “it isn’t enough to be silent anymore.” The design community should do more, a lot more, but how? Even though the systems at play are so massively broken, doing something is a start.
In this episode Elizabeth explores how architects and interior designers can start to address social change and equity in the design process.
Systemic change comes from listening before speaking
Where Does The Work Start?
It occurred to me the architecture and building profession in my design community, is predominantly white. There is a lack of equal voices among the field. I am reminded of the ACE mentor program. Where design practitioners volunteer their time to mentor junior and senior high school students by exposing and hopefully inspiring them to pursue a career in the built environment. As I worked with the students I was in awe of the diversity of students in attendance but as I reflect back I am saddened to think how many of them were not actually able to pursue a degree in architecture, engineering, construction or design, if the cost of a 4+yr degree is inaccessible. I must quickly add that the ACE program provides scholarships across the country for some of those students. However, my guess is it is not enough. Along with a very broken police system, a divided political system, we also have a broken educational system. One that is not accessible to all. I believe knowledge is power but if a financial burden and horrendous debt comes from that knowledge, how is one to advance. It sickens me more than ever to think of those young minds thirsty for knowledge yet they don’t have the same access to opportunities like their privileged counterparts. So, my first call to action is for all of us to explore, how we can make our profession more accessible to all? How can we close the gap? We are not going to be able to do it without an equitable higher educational system. One that is accessible to all.
“In these troubled, uncertain times, we don’t need more command and control; we need better means to engage everyone’s intelligence in solving challenges and crises as they arise.” -Wheatley
Diverse Design Teams
I imagine a design field that is more diverse. That fosters collaboration among, not just different trades, but socio-economic backgrounds to create conversations that are more holistic and representative of a diversity of perspectives. Image for a second where we could take our projects with this type of intentionality. We don’t know what it looks like yet because we are not there but I can feel it. I know that the power of collaboration will unleash something amazing and profound. Image if those diverse teams were facilitated to foster the uncomfortable challenging conversations.
“do unto others as they themselves would have done unto themselves” -Bennett
Systemic change comes from working with all stakeholders instead of mandating change.
Systemic changes is grass roots, it is messy, it is hard but it is worth it.
Resources
Collogate Design provides a extensive list of resources for the design industry
Black Artist and Designers Guild
National Organization of Minority Architects
National Association of Black Women in Construction
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Social Change and Leadership Quotes
I recognize the reading list I am providing is a privileged list and I will strive to do my part to seek and learn from those that are under privileged to elevate their voice. This selection of authors has guided me to creating this episode and their words have hung with me over the years as I studied systemic change strategies. They provide insight that I believe will lead to systemic social change. If we are willing to lean in, listen and do the hard work necessary, we as a design community can help elevate the voices of the underserved.
LeBaron, M. (2003). Bridging cultural conflicts: A new approach for a changing world. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Olson, E. E., & Eoyang, G. H. (2001). Facilitating organization change: Lessons from complexity science. San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer.
Parker, G. (2006). Organization development: A Jossey-Bass reader. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Wheatley, M. (2007). Finding Our Way: leadership for an uncertain time. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publisher, Inc.
Wheatley, M. & Frieze, D. (2011). Walk Out Walk On: a learning journey into communities daring to live the future now. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publisher, Inc.
Credit
Branding & Graphic Design work by Andrea Schwoebel https://www.andreaschwoebel.com/
Photo by Koshu Kunii on Unsplash
Photo by LOGAN WEAVER on Unsplash
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
Recognize We Often Design For The Privileged
And we are privileged our selves if we had access to a degree in the built environment. We need to foster development and equal access to quality-built environments.
Image a world where all have:
1. Schools with 21st century learning strategies
2. Homes that are healthy and safe
3. Community centers that inspire the occupants to express their heritage
4. Public parks that provide safe access to movement and nature
5. Transportation structure that supports job industries and equitable access
We need to dig deeper to understand how to create accessible spaces for all, including accessibility to affordable medical services and education. If we as a society are to change or to grow as a nation and as a global world, we as designers need to encourage and foster probono work by creating small local actions within our own community. Examples could be:
-Colloqate Design designing at the intersection of race, culture and architecture
-Repurposed Homeless housing in collaboration with Portland State University and SRG Partnership
-O+A design Food Truck for Thought
-Liz Ogbu’s designing for social impact
The key however is to slow down from one’s design hustle and to provide opportunities to pay it forward. All in name, because we know in our hearts it is the right thing to do and each small localized action could lead to something big, powerful and revolutionize the way the built environment creates equity and social justice.
Creativity Is A Privilege
I am reminded of a lecture I once attended on creativity and how the brain functions. I observed how privileged one is to be able to use the creative side of one’s brain. When the brain is stressed it goes into fight or flight mode. One is literally unable to tap into the day dreaming creative side when their life is under stress. If you are someone of privilege and you are able to think creatively use that power to help under served populations expand their path forward.
Active Listening Is A Path Forward
We will not be effective as a design community if we apply a top down approach. We as a community need to be strategic at how we engage with projects.
“People will be accountable and committed to what they have a hand in creating” -Block
Instead of applying our knowledge we partner with those communities to provide them the resource’s and tools to design spaces that work for their culture.
“the single most important factor distinguishing effective from ineffective teams is the ability of team members to listen to each other” - Parker
Going back to my initial inquiry. I began to ask my self what can I offer? How can I be better? How can I inspire others to be better? It occurred to me we have many of the resources we already need, they are just under utilized. We are taught our role in school is to be a designer. It is rarely mentioned that there are a plethora of other fields that we need in order to be successful in the practice of design. One important one I want to highlight is the importance of being a leader, collaborator and facilitator. I believe one of the steps we can easily make as a industry is to be social justice facilitators.
In order to Bridge Cultural Conflict LeBaron states, ”Dynamic engagement applied with a spirit of dialog provides a way to change. Conflictual relationships to transform ones learning, creativity and individual and collective growth arise from the constructed shifts in relationship by dynamic engagement.”
The key and largest point I want to make is we cannot continue to lead and design with privilege. We cannot mandate change aka top down design strategies within underserved communities. We need to work with those communities
“the process of organizing involves developing relationships from a shared sense of purpose, exchanging and creating information, learning constantly, paying attention to the results of our efforts, co-adapting, co-evolving, developing wisdom as we learn, staying clear about our purpose, being alert to changes from all directions”. Wheatley
We need to adopt a new role as a facilitator, not the all high and mighty practitioner that knows best. We need to be humble. We need to be vulnerable. We need to be willing to step down and recognize that the skill sets lie in leading teams through the design process. We need to elevate the voice of others. Now that is Design Justice.
“Leaders who live in the new story help us understand ourselves differently by the way they lead. They trust our humanness; they welcome the surprises we bring to them; they are curious about our differences; they delight in our inventiveness; they nurture us; they connect us. They trust that we can create wisely and well, that we seek the best interests of our organization and our community, that we want to bring more good into the world.” Wheatley
I am reminded of the power of active listening. Where one reserves judgement in name of learning, paraphrase what is heard from other team members before offering their own opinion and acknowledges and fosters differences among the team.
We don’t need another invention we need to utilizing the wisdom of the communities to design for social justice. I recognize we have a long road ahead of us and this is only one small piece of the pie to a larger system at play that is massively broken but one thing we can do as a community is to practice active listening. We start by listening and maybe that comes with being aware enough and brave enough to ask the right questions. We must be thoughtful, methodical and intentional. We must observe who is not at the table. Who is not represented when we host stakeholder conversations. As designers of the built environment it is our ethical role to server all and we need to do more.