Climate Action – Equitable Communities

“Design solutions affect more than the client and current occupants. Good design positively impacts future occupants and the larger community. ” AIA Framework for Design Excellence

Design for Equitable Communities

Speakers: 
Ric. Abramson, FAIA, City Architect/Urban Designer & Architect Studio Manager, City of West Hollywood
John Lum, AIA, Founding Principal, John Lum Architecture, Inc.
Ben Metcalf, Managing Director, UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation
Moderator: Adrianne Steichen, AIA, Principal, Pyatok Architects

Realizing greater equity in the design of communities necessitates that decision makers and design professionals create more specific and direct alignments between policy goals and physical implementation.  Finding common ground, managing expectations, and tying solutions to real world conditions and localized environments are essential. In contrast to overarching regulatory structures that target larger cultural desires, design thinking has real potential to address civic and private space inequities directly, especially with respect to housing production. Design can become a potent tool in shaping community-based conversations and effecting meaningful change.  By aligning advocacy conversations and policy objectives with design strategies, new housing solutions can influence how equitably-designed neighborhoods might mature and can provide access to wealth building and healthier, thoughtfully programmed, sustainable, resilient, and environmentally-responsive living patterns more successfully.