Prescott Reavis: Stories From the Field

Stories From the Field is a mini-series about how our alumni, facilitators, and community members are putting equity principles into practice. Stay tuned for more stories about the nuances, challenges, and impacts of transforming our work from the inside out. If you want to feature your story, reach out to info (at) openarchcollab.org.

This story spotlights Prescott Reavis, an Oakland-based spatial activist, architect, designer, planner, and P2E facilitator.

How would you describe your work?

I see my role as a spatial activist. I try to empower communities to understand they have a lot of the info they need to create change in their neighborhoods, and we are just there to cultivate that, filling in gaps with the technical and political expertise. I try to move at the speed of the community, not at the pace of government or business entities.

As designers, we’ve been trained to be the authorities of creating spaces. Often when architects and designers say “community engagement” it ends up being outsiders coming in with a proposal and a schedule. We have this lens of the way things should be done. But often we don’t see the lens of what’s most inclusive and desirable by communities. A lot of things we are taught in school have to be unlearned.

Tell us about an experience doing community-based work?

For me, I left the traditional practice for 17 years and worked for a community design center. I came onto this project to do neighborhood planning, focusing on a new youth and family zone. I was partnering with a cultural group who I hadn’t ever been in relationship with. When we started, this group looked at me like you don’t really know the neighborhood, and you don’t know us. I saw this gap could be a barrier to the project. I realized I had to first understand who they are as people.

I started showing up at every event they had, plus their partner organizations, weekends, late nights, for 3 or 4 months, and plus we were meeting once a month for the project. Eventually they started asking me more questions and we were having conversations that are more like any average conversation you’d have with your neighbors as humans. Eventually they said we saw you were here to get to know us and support us, not just here to work on the project.

It’s my role to support them in coming up with a plan to move their own community forward. Ultimately I’m trying to take their word and translate it back to the government entity who initiated the project. My main client was essentially the community and the government was secondary even though the government was providing the funding. I needed to show them I was there to listen to their values first and foremost, as individuals and as an organization. I’m not just there to do the work, that’s not the most important thing. It may look like good work on paper, but without relationship it won’t actually be transformative when it comes to implementation. Good outcomes require deep conversations, which requires cultivating trust to say things like ‘hey you aren’t getting this’, or ‘hey we are on the wrong track’. I can bring my ideas and clearly explain why I think their approach might not be the best one. They can pause me when my questions remind them of histories of extractive researchers taking their info and abandoning them. They trust I’m not just here to do my job.