Transforming communities through architecture
[Music]
ever worked in a six-foot cubicle farm
with overhead fluorescent lighting kind
of like in the office
i have you have a very different sense
of well-being there
than if you have open access to hang out
with your peers
where you have space view access to
nature
natural light you feel
differently which ultimately makes you
do things
differently i was born
in the heart of seattle central district
a historically black community
my mother who grew up in the city as i
was called
knew that my sister and i would struggle
in a neighborhood that was under
resourced
it was difficult for a black family to
have a leg up
my parents wanted a better life for
their kids which meant two things
a zip code where the mean average
household income was twice
what it was in the cd and access to a
college track education
and a public school system the only one
they were going to be able to afford
so we moved to the suburbs
what did my parents gain for the move to
white suburbia
well my sister and i did well in school
we both graduated college
we got well paying professional jobs
what did my parents lose connection
direct day-to-day connection with people
that looked like
us cooked like us felt the same
connection of soul music
had the same way of speaking identified
with the same cultural references
had the same world view
the apartment buildings that i grew up
in on the east side felt like storage
units for humans
when i walked home from school i entered
a huge asphalt parking lot with parking
stalls as far as the eye could see
rows of vinyl-clad buildings that looked
like
oversized lego blocks spread across the
urban landscape
no differentiation no distinction the
only way to tell my building
was to find this the six foot high
letter c
and then navigate myself to our family’s
unit
c101 these cheap woody walk-ups
as they were called three-story
apartment block developments
were plentiful throughout all of
suburbia
my family would reside in one for a
number of years and then move on to the
next one
and the next one they were entirely
indistinguishable
from each other interchangeable
modern versions of affordable housing
the modern slum
this physical environment only elevated
my lack of connection
my lack of sense of place we did not
know our neighbors
we had no place to gather as a family or
as part of a community
we often had no yard no garden
no relief from the sprawl no beauty
i’m forever indebted to the sacrifices
of my loving parents
this is not any criticism of their
choices or their hopes
for me and my sister instead it’s a
reflection that environment has a
profound
impact on how you view and experience
the world
for me that lack of connection was
fundamental in shaping who i am today
a black architect working to foster
community
and connection in college
i studied architecture at a school as
far away from white suburbia as i
possibly could get
that community in st louis what i
what i learned was that there was a even
greater wage gap than where i grew up
one of those communities the former slum
pruitt igo
was a classic example of the failure of
urban renewal in the 1950s
the idea was the people lived in large
towers and freed up the ground plane for
fields of green
in practice what pruitt i go really
became was a failed experiment
of high-rise racially segregated
poverty-stricken affordable housing
ultimately pruitica was torn down in the
1970s
similar to how i grew up those those
containers for humans
did not contain environments where
people felt connected to the land
to each other or to themselves and when
you feel disconnected
it’s nearly impossible to care about
maintain
or invest in the hard shell that is your
container
this can easily turn into feelings of
resentment
anger fear or neglect it was this
disconnect that i shared and felt
and that drove me to authentically
identify with the black
indigenous people of color community
that i wanted to serve as an architect
what i know as a community architect is
that
design of our built and natural
environment can either tear communities
apart
or bring communities together
in the mid-90s i returned to my home
to create a space that would celebrate
black community in the northwest
the site was a mess a neighborhood torn
apart
by a highway expansion with a long
vacant school
and a park that was underutilized and
vacant
we started with a community visioning
process to truly
determine what mattered to the community
that we wanted to serve
now more than a decade after it opened
the northwest african-american
museum at the coleman school is still
going strong
it is served to knit the community
together
and create a space where people belong
physical space can unlock pride
another project that brought together
community was first place schools in
seattle
they served homeless kids and in doing
so
providing them education and providing
them a safe space that they otherwise
didn’t have
i had the opportunity to design an
environment to provide the things that i
was not otherwise afforded in suburbia
in the central district my parents knew
their neighbors they could hang out on
the front yard they could sit on a stoop
and talk this place needed to promote
community
it started with a small housing
development called amani village
it was built immediately adjacent to the
school it provided outdoor classroom
space for the school
and 16 units of affordable housing for
families that were part of the program
in her famous book the death and life of
great american cities
jane jacobs talks about how when people
have windows that look out onto the
street
and onto shared outdoor space they’re
more likely to look
out on their windows and be a part of
keeping the street
safe we designed this project to make
certain that we created that same
experience the project was designed to
look like
two large residential homes people move
from the
unprotected space of the street through
a portal between the two homes and
into a shared courtyard populated with
flowering trees
adorned stoops and play equipment for
the kids
each unit’s entry and windows look into
that shared space
and people have a shared experience that
allows them to build
community allows people to co-mingle
and get to know their neighbors in doing
so
we created a sense of home
when built spaces ignore community the
cost
is high two years ago
i was asked by a majority white
developer to assist them
with a project that they had lost their
way
their goal was to develop 430 units
of residential housing on a prominent
street
in the central district two other
projects of a similar type had already
failed the black community
on that same intersection the developer
did not understand
the community’s values the project was
not being
developed in a way that was celebrating
black culture and history
the black community decided that enough
was enough
and that this white developer was coming
into their community and taking
advantage of them
the city of seattle responded by saying
that the developer could not move
forward with the project
until this disconnection was addressed
i was brought in to help re-establish
the conversation and invite
more faces to the table
the difference between involving the
community from the start
and coming in late was that we still had
big boxes on the site
however we were able to incorporate
eight black artists into both
the design of the physical buildings and
the site
and through that collaboration between
the black artists and the developer
we are able to now see and
celebrate the brilliant black history
and culture of the central district
literally cast
on the buildings of this project
the project includes a courtyard
internal to the city block
which features a huge outdoor gathering
and performance space
with a beautiful life-giving tree as the
centerpiece
the space will be given life by
african-american marketplace small
businesses
retail and art galleries that populate
all
of the spaces that wrap the courtyard
and also spill out onto the street
in partnership with africa town
community land trust
the city block will offer almost 250
units of affordable housing for families
last summer in a neighborhood in seattle
there was a single space that embodied
community
and a need to heal capitol hill
was overtaken by unrest
the capitol hill organized protest or
chop
as it came to be known came together
to celebrate culture and have their
voices heard
cal anderson park was transformed by the
black lives matter movement
and a groundswell of community members
engaged
they wanted to make a difference for
themselves by themselves
despite hardship after the death settled
and the shop
and the chop was no longer occupying the
city streets
we convened a series of public open
houses online surveys
and small gatherings to ask stakeholders
at every level
how we create own and occupy public
space
marcus henderson of black star farmers
built a community garden
in that public space of the chop because
people crave connection to each other
and to the earth he answered that call
by creating opportunities for families
to plant vegetables and grow their own
food to be more connected to both the
soil
and to be able to commune with each
other
by re-envisioning the physical
environment in the public realm
marcus created community we’re expanding
on that promise
by creating new gathering spaces for
community conversations
public art opportunities and expanding
the opportunities for food producing
garden spaces on the site
will enhance the public realm with clear
and open lines of sight
better lighting and community policing
that will allow neighbors to feel safe
to gather and to celebrate the culture
of their community
all humans have a right and
responsibility
to invest in their in their built
environment
to promote social change imagine what
would happen
if we all had our own version of cal
anderson park
architecture is an expression of who we
are as a culture
what we hold up on high is beauty what
we believe is important to invest in
and how we treat our people
without holding ourselves responsible
for that personal investment
in our own future and out of our
community
we will continue to erode the social
structure that have supported our sense
of well-being
we will not nurture our cultural center
our sense of place
our sense of home our sense of
connection
the built environment not just the
buildings but the way buildings are
designed to create opening gathering
space
can provide a stronger connection
between the community that lives there
by celebrating history and celebrating
the culture of the people that live
there
in this way we can create a renewed
sense of connection
and celebration i’ve seen it happen
but architects alone are not the answer
from public officials
down to small business owners down to
residents
everyone needs to participate in the
process to celebrate
and come together to create a space
where we can all belong
right now we’re a nation disconnected
from
ourselves from each other
we need to come together to create
spaces where we can be together
and feel a sense of belonging both
psychologically and physically thank you