Framework for Design Excellence: Design for Equitable Communities
Design solutions affect more than the client and current occupants. Good design positively impacts the future by helping communities thrive—socially, economically, and environmentally.
- What is the project's greater reach? How could this project contribute to creating a diverse, accessible, walkable, just, and human-scaled community?
- Who might this project be forgetting? How can the design process and outcome remove barriers and promote inclusion and social equity, particularly with respect to vulnerable communities?
- What opportunities exist in this project to include, engage, and promote human connection?
- How can the design support health and resilience for the community during times of need or during emergencies?
Focus topics
- Community-scale issues beyond the project
- Social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion
- Community engagement and empowerment
- Community resilience
- Mobility and access
If you can do only one (or a few) thing(s):
- ZERO-CARBON: Evaluate the embodied carbon and social value of a structure before demolition.
- ZERO-CARBON: Reduce the amount of energy the project requires, and then seek renewable and local energy sources while considering the environmental justice impacts on future generations.
- RESILIENT: Embrace community knowledge to understand social, economic, and environmental hazard impacts and create resilient design solutions.
- EQUITABLE: Implement a robust stakeholder engagement plan.
- EQUITABLE: Organize the design team to provide diversity in the project, including the development team, design team, and construction team.
- EQUITABLE: Work with designers, contractors, and consultants that participate in a social equity program (such as JUST ).
- HEALTHY: Design with products that address both chemical transparency and organizational equity.
- HEALTHY: Create gathering spaces and social infrastructure to support strong human networks. Design compact, connected, and complete communities.
