Sharing Space for Equitable Design: Engagement Plan to Intentionally Elevate Historically Excluded Perspectives

Community engagement is a common early phase of design projects, and a critical juncture for designers to make space for historically marginalized communities to participate in the creative process. The design team for the Longfellow Middle School renovation project implemented a localistic engagement approach that explicitly sought to remove barriers to participation for members of the community and elevate the Longfellow facilities to a more equitable position to its peer schools in the district. The engagement methods of an interdisciplinary team of design and engagement professional included both local leaders and national collaborating experts to create targeted engagement opportunities for Spanish-speaking families and African American families. Our results demonstrate the power of engagement as an opportunity to build shared understanding around a project, to generate engagement data and artifacts that preserve the plurality of many voices, and importance of architects and designers using their project position to make space in the engagement framework for voices that have historically been ignored.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AIA.Inter.21.17

Volume Editors
Rico Quirindongo & Georgeen Theodore

ISBN
978-1-944214-39-5