Chelina Odbert: Toward a Just Public Realm | Justice by Design Lecture
In this Justice by Design lecture, “Toward a Just Public Realm: Building More Complete, Inclusive, and Resilient Communities,” Chelina Odbert, founding principal of KDI, explores 15 years of work across scales and geographies, demonstrating how planning and design can be tools for ensuring that where you live does not determine how you live.
Your zip code is a better predictor of health than your genetic code. Around the world, the length and quality of your life is, in large part, determined by where you live. In Los Angeles County, Malibu residents live about 15 years longer than their South LA neighbors. This disparity is no accident — it was designed. From streets to schools, pollutants to parks, your built environment shapes your life outcomes.
Focused on making the public realm more just, Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) is a nonprofit design and community development organization that collaborates with communities that have been excluded, harmed, or marginalized by traditional modes of planning and design to build power and create physical change that communities prioritize.
Sponsored by the Department of City & Regional Planning
About the Speaker
Chelina Odbert is the co-founder and executive director of Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI), a nonprofit that uses urban planning, landscape architecture, research, and community organizing to build a more just public realm. Straddling different disciplines, scales, and project types, her work is linked by a common purpose: to build community power and ensure that where you live does not determine how you live. She has been recognized by the United Nations, the Aspen Institute, the Knight Foundation Fellows, and Ashoka Changemakers, the Architectural League of New York, and the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt Museum. Odbert earned a Master of Urban Planning from Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Arts from Claremont McKenna College and has held teaching appointments at Harvard Graduate School of Design, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and the Claremont Colleges. She is the author of The World Bank Handbook of Gender-Inclusive Urban Planning and Design.
About the Series
Justice by Design is a college-wide lecture series that brings together speakers from across disciplines to address the intersection of social justice and the built environment.
Free + open to the public.
If you require accommodations to fully participate, please contact ceddean@berkeley.edu or 510.642.0831 at least 10 days prior to the event.