The Center for Public Interest Design at Portland State University is a program that offers a Graduate Certificate in Public Interest Design. The courses are from multiple disciplines across the university, including architecture, business, environmental science and management, public affairs, and public studies and planning. Field work with firms and organizations that work on community […]
The UMass Amherst Design Center, located at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, focuses on the challenges of communities in Massachusetts. They use research, and a wide range of planning and urban design work to address needs of various communities. Efforts include projects to support revitalization and sustainable design. The Design Center is a collaboration between […]
Environmental Works Community Design Center is a nonprofit community-based architectural firm that provides services to other nonprofit organizations, municipal agencies, and under-represented communities in the state of Washington. Their services include architecture, landscape architecture, and planning. They strive to create quality design and sustainable communities with efficient use of capital funds. Environmental Works focus on […]
MASS Design Group is a team of architects, landscape architects, engineers, builders, furniture designers, writers, film makers, and researchers from across 20 countries. They advocate for justice and human dignity through research, building, and advocacy, primarily through architecture. Building for a climate positive future is one of their values. This includes the design of a […]
The Sustainable City Year Program (SCYP) is a year-long collaboration between University of Oregon and various stakeholders including Oregon city, county, special district, tribe, and other governmental partnerships. In the academic courses, students work on partner-identified projects to solve the real-world problems in community challenges and sustainable development. The SCYP outlines a sustainable and livable […]
Design impacts everyone, for better or for worse. Every week (for 10 weeks), the Detroit City of Design Podcast invites designers, innovators and the curious to participate in a dialogue on how Design can be used to create conditions to improve quality of life and economic opportunity. View Detroit as a global model for sustainable […]
Environment and Activism podcast, hosted by Bay Area Book Festival, discusses design activism through an environmental lens. Guest designers discuss environmental activism topics from its history and hope, to its relation to other social issues, as well as specific topics such as food system and sustainability. [button url=”https://www.baybookfest.org/podcasts/podcasts-environment-and-activism/” target=”blank” background=”#444444″]Listen Here[/button]
To honor those who declared interdependence before us, Randy Hester discusses our responsibility to sustain ecological democracy and attempt to achieve sustainable happiness. This video explores all the components and resources required to achieve this, which include the intersection between community, language, nature, politics, etc. [button url=”https://www.lafoundation.org/resources/2016/07/declaration-randy-hester” target=”blank” background=”#444444″]Watch Here[/button]
Metropolis magazine hosted a panel that explored the need to expand the field of architecture by including design as activism. More attention has turned to designing for sustainability, but there is still a lack of focus on designing for social and economic issues. The panel discussed a spectrum of social issues, such as affordable housing; […]
Kate Orff discusses the need for meaningful landscape design to respond to current issues such as climate change. She believes in taking a stand in making landscape architecture “promulgate new civic life.” She explores new tools to achieve this while involving everyone in a community through examples of her projects throughout the United States. While […]
The New Landscape Declaration builds on the Landscape Architecture foundation’s 1966 Declaration of Concern. Uniquely trained in systems thinking and interdisciplinary facilitation, landscape architects are poised to promote the ideals of equity, sustainability, resiliency and democracy through an integration of form and function. This declaration calls on landscape architects to use their skill sets to […]
