LAEP Lecture: Community-Driven Design

Community-Driven Design
With Antionette D. Carroll, Alex Ramirez, and Chazandra Kern
Wednesday, February 24, 6:30-8:00 pm

Livestream: https://vimeo.com/499393854

Presented by the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

Making cities and regions sustainable and inclusive requires more than just deploying smart or social infrastructure. It requires us to reimagine the notion of human capabilities in planning. Advocacy planning, equity planning, and community development all seek to empower communities in the planning process. Universal design however, does this and more, but, it's been largely ignored by planners. This lecture reviews how a disability responsive capability-based approach to planning gives us a new and powerful conceptual framework for amplifying the good and minimizing the harm of technology deployment in future cities. 

Antionette D. Carroll is the Founder and CEO of Creative Reaction Lab, a nonprofit social enterprise designing healthy and racially equitable communities for Black and Latinx populations. Throughout her career, Antionette has worked for social justice, human rights, and diversity and inclusion nonprofits - with her last position being head of communications for Diversity Awareness Partnership. Currently, Antionette is the Chair Emeritus of the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force of AIGA: The Professional Association of Design. At the local level, she is also serving as President Emerita of AIGA St. Louis and co-founder of the Design + Diversity Conference and Podcast. She is a TED Fellow.

Chazandra Kern is a Northern California native raised in a family of woodworkers and makers. She has always been inspired by the ability people have to shape their own spaces. Chaz is interested in the exploration of different housing types, and in the complexity of the systems and scales of interaction that operate within our home and our cities. She believes that design is enriched by the collective dialogues and perspectives of everyone involved in the process.     

Chazandra holds a master's degree in Architecture with a Housing Specialization from the University of Oregon and a bachelor degree in Architectural Studies from Arizona State University. She also serves on the Board of the Elysian Valley Arts Collective. Her interests in design, fabrication, and construction haves led her to seek opportunities in a range of fields in addition to architecture. Chaz has previously worked in furniture refurbishing and as a laborer for the restoration of a 100-year old house. She has also worked for a General Contractor in the Bay Area and for Koss Design+Build in Arizona.

Alex Ramirez grew up in Cholula, Puebla, in central Mexico, where rapid city growth has made large social, economic and environmental impacts. She spent her childhood in the local market where her parents, an educator and a business owner, ran a corner store and instilled a strong sense of pride in their community. These experiences sparked her interest in how urban planning and design can promote healthy and thriving communities.

Alex holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the Universidad de las Américas Puebla, and a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. She likes to take on collaborative projects that focus on the improvement of the quality of life for people and increase access to goods and services. Alex has worked with academic institutions, nonprofit organizations and local governments in the U.S., Mexico and Brazil to develop planning projects and research that incorporates the community’s vision and action.

Image from LA-Más project Proyecto Pastoral Courtyard Redesign https://www.mas.la/proyecto-pastoral