Pathways to Equity: Advancing Equity in a Design Practice
The Pilot Year Concludes
By Shalini Agrawal
Professionals who work in and impact the build environment are increasingly interested in bringing community input into the process, with the aim of responsive and sustainable design. Yet communities have become wary of this approach, where good intentions fall flat. Communities are invited to share feedback, but often their feedback goes unheard and unheeded. Processes are streamlined for the benefit of those investing in these projects, and yet the communities most impacted are left out.
Communities are not the only ones who are noticing the disparity between intention and impact. A new generation of emerging leaders in the fields of design, architecture, art and planning are seeking skills, language and best possibilities of working towards more equitable outcomes in the design of the built environment. These are practitioners who are committed to learning, listening and connecting with other peers interested in community-engaged practice. From across the country, they are looking for equity-based approaches, an understanding of the impacts of systemic oppression, an experience of equity in practice.
What is Pathways to Equity?
Pathways to Equity is a program with the goal of developing self-awareness by engaging in community driven projects with community members. The program is led by co-directors, Garrett Jacobs and Shalini Agrawal, who bring years of experience co-creating with communities. In the fall of 2018, they, along with twenty-two fellows, seven community partners, and eight community leaders joined together in a collective journey of learning over seven months. A diversity of fellows represented fields including architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, economic development, affordable housing real estate development, law, non-profit management, capital investment, environmental health, and impact investment analysis.
Two full weekends were devoted to intensive workshops facilitated by community experts with the intention of community-building and setting a foundation of trust for the duration of the program (you can read more about those initial weekends here). We deepened our awareness of our identities, embodied the effects of trauma, listened to the lived experiences from local leaders who confront the effects of systemic oppression and the uneven balance of power on a daily basis. These sessions helped us understand the importance of bringing equity into reach for a sustainable future.
Why an equity approach?
We are called to go beyond passive discontent to active allyship, as our collective consciousness is provoked by injustice, systemic oppression and institutionalized racism. Addressing inequities in our systems calls for a deeper understanding of the underlying causes, such as bias, systemic oppression and white supremacy. Pathways to Equity presents the skills and strategies needed to challenge patriarchal systems with the support necessary to effect change. This program explores our understanding of who we are and what we bring to this work while creating space for deep listening.
Over the seven months, fellows volunteered their time to integrate the community into the process with respect, and centered them as experts. Moving at the speed of trust, they invested the time needed to build relationships with their community partner. They extended the boundaries of vulnerability, in which experiences that may have previously been held in discomfort became experiences in making connections with each other. They spent time with their partners by attending cultural festivals, community birthday parties, and sharing meals at meetings. They embodied and lived the learning process in real time and context, leading with trust-building before starting any conceptualization.
This work required the fellows to show up, and keep showing up. There were learnings that went beyond the delivered curriculum. Fellows held compassion for their partners, showing up and supporting a collaborative process through the challenges of unpredictable schedules and limited capacity. At the request of their partner, they represented the community in large city council meetings as a voice for the community. They held themselves to a high standard of accountability, with some fellows continuing their work with their community partner beyond the conclusion of the program.
The Project Results
This process yielded a variety of projects that emerged from active listening and community engagement. One team worked on issues of environmental justice with the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project to create a community benefits agreement in advance of the a large development of the new Stadium for the Oakland A’s in the neighborhood. The partner leveraged the design and planning skills that the team brought to the table throughout the process.
The team working with the Oakland Asian Cultural Center created a mobile “culture cart” that celebrated the diaspora of Asian culture through art-making, and supports the organization’s presence outside of their office and cultural space. This team also created strategic language and organizational structure visioning for a grassroots organizing effort called the Chinatown Improvement Initiative to leverage for fundraising efforts.
The team working with St. Anthony’s Foundation Another team provided a way-finding graphics for the large non-profit serving the houseless community in San Francisco, recognizing the need for internal communication through visual communication.
They also tested and assembled a creative engagement cart as a new way for the staff to connect with their guests.
The final team provided an architectural plan and phased construction schedule and budget for Compass Family Service’s shared spaces in their homeless shelter which incorporated flexible programmatic design addressing the organizational capacity-building needs.
In all instances the fellows leveraged their professional knowledge and skills to design creative projects that were a direct response to the needs of the community. This reciprocal and relational experience would not have occurred without an investment of trust-building and personal reflection.
Why is it critical to do this work now?
As we isolate ourselves from who we are as a society, we are called forward to be conduits for our communities. This is not just a “nice to have” when addressing inequities in our built environment, but a must have. Fellows were encouraged to self-reflect and think more deeply about their role as designers. In doing so, they identified that problems were not architectural, but systemic. Fellows used listening skills to explore the possibilities to provide a fuller ideas and solutions, bringing a genuine desire to build bridges. They stepped into their leadership, balancing a diversity of needs and issues at multi-partner meetings. Fellows were called to share their experience to their peers, and have presented at national conferences.
In a profession that is structured to fill spatial voids, the fellows ceded space. To do so, they immersed themselves in the practice of the work to learn the work. They contributed to a culture for equity to emerge, modeling inclusion with humility, patience and understanding. They met partners where they were at, adjusting expectations throughout the process and yet committing to leverage their creative thinking to community-led projects. As this first year comes concludes, we see this is a starting point toward making structural shifts in the systems that will impact our built environment towards equitable benefits for all communities.
Stay tuned as we share more lessons from the experience once our evaluation report is completed in the coming weeks. We give thanks to all the fellows who dove and the unknown together, their families who supported their efforts, the partners who trusted in the process, the funders who helped launch this pilot program, and the sponsoring firms and companies who sponsored the initial experiment.
