Formalizing public interest design

FORMALIZING PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN Jeremy P. Knoll

ARCHITECTURAL WRITING ARCH 750-H Submitted in fulfillment of required coursework

MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE College of Architecture, Planning, and Design Department of Architecture

KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Manhattan, Kansas 2016

Professor Vladimir Krstic, Director KCDC

FORMALIZING PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN

COPYRIGHT

FORMALIZING PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN Jeremy P. Knoll Copyright 2016 Paper submitted in fulfilment of class ARCH 750-H Professor Vladimir Krstic, Director KCDC KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY College of Architecture, Planning, and Design Department of Architecture

ABSTRACT DEMONSTRATING THE CASE FOR INVESTMENT IN PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN IN THE FOR-PROFT DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT INDUSTRY The fields of architecture and planning have historically sought to create universal aspirational communities for all people, especially as a solution to the overcrowding and poor living conditions that came with industrialization at a large scale. For the past half-century, however, low income communities have been given decreasing levels of the focus, investment, and empowerment that is required in a competitive modern society, resulting in blight and socio-economic segregation.

Public Interest Design is an emerging field of design which is largely practiced by not-for-profits or through the charitable efforts of for profit organizations in the current market, as these are the methods which conventionally used to serve low income communities. The opportunity, however, is to create a completely new form of design through community empowerment and representation through a for profit project delivery model. The definitions, boundaries, and opportunities offered by the emerging Public Interest Design field are outlined, defined, and explored herein, along with several project delivery models and case studies.

Creating and investing attention to the development of this new form of project identification, development, and delivery could revolutionize the role of the design industry in its ability to affect profound changes and societal advancement through engagement and empowerment. The further benefit to the industry practitioners is the diversification of client types, resulting in overall reduced risk in a fluctuating economy. There are serious obstacles built into the rigid and risk-averse cycle of policy, lending, and development, but innumerable opportunities too.

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION – CHAPTER 1 ...........................................................................................................................

OPPORTUNITY AND CHALLENGE ................................................................................................................ 1 BACKGROUND – CHAPTER 2 .............................................................................................................................

HISTORY OF DESIGN AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST ........................................................................................ 5 DESIGN AS NECESSITY ................................................................................................................................. 7 SEGREGATION BY POLICY .................................................................................................................. 7 MODERN MARGINILIZATION............................................................................................................. 9 ORGANIZING FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION ............................................................................................ 9 DEFINING “PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN” ..................................................................................................... 11 TYPES OF PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN.......................................................................................................... 12 EARLY PID ........................................................................................................................................ 13 GLOBAL ECONOMIC CATALYST ....................................................................................................... 14 METHODOLOGY – CHAPTER 3 ..........................................................................................................................

BUSINESS APPROACH ................................................................................................................................ 19 NON-PROFIT PID MODEL – MASS DESIGN ...................................................................................... 21 FOR-PROFIT MARKET DRIVEN DESIGN FIRM MODEL – GENSLER BALTIMORE ............................... 23 FOR-PROFIT / NOR-FOT-PROFIT HYBRID PID MODEL – INSCAPE STUDIO/PUBLICO ...................... 26 WHO PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN IS FOR ..................................................................................................... 29 WHO PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN BENEFITS ................................................................................................ 30 WHEN TO USE PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN ................................................................................................. 32 THE START OF A STANDARD ...................................................................................................................... 33 IMPLEMENTING THE SEED METHOD .............................................................................................. 34

CASE STUDIES – CHAPTER 4 ..............................................................................................................................

GROUND ZERO – NEW YORK, NEW YORK ................................................................................................. 39 NEW ORLEANS PRINCIPLES - NEW ORLEANS, LA ...................................................................................... 43 GREENSBURG MASTERPLAN – GREENSBURG, KS ..................................................................................... 47 MANHEIM PARK VISION PLAN – KANSAS CITY, MO .................................................................................. 51 SYSTEM PROPOSAL – CHAPTER 5 .....................................................................................................................

UNDERSTANDING THE STANDARD DEVELOPMENT CYCLE ....................................................................... 57 THE PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN DEVELOPMENT CYCLE .............................................................................. 61 CONCLUSIONS – CHAPTER 6 .............................................................................................................................

OVERCOMING OBSTACLES ........................................................................................................................ 67 RIGID RISK SYSTEMS ........................................................................................................................ 68 THE RIGHT FUNDING FOR THE RIGHT PROJECT .............................................................................. 68 LEARNING FROM THE GREEN BUILDING MOVEMENT .................................................................... 69 NEXT STEPS ............................................................................................................................................... 71 COMMUNICATION .......................................................................................................................... 69 POLICY ............................................................................................................................................. 70 RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT ............................................................................................................. 71 COLLABORATIVE FUND DEVELOPMENT .......................................................................................... 72 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................. 75 APPENDIX ..........................................................................................................................................................

REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................................. 79 FIGURES..................................................................................................................................................... 81 ENDNOTES................................................................................................................................................. 83

INTRODUCTION - 1

INTRODUCTION Public Interest Design is a field of design development that prioritizes public input and empowers communities to make decisions which directly impact development priorities, methods, and program. The design and planning industry is gradually becoming more inclusive, as design professionals seek a greater depth of market resiliency, expanding diversity in clients to include under-resourced communities.

OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES Through an emerging design approach increasingly referred to as “public interest design” (PID), the design and planning communities are testing the boundaries of their respective fields, seeking ways to reverse flows of responsibility, risk, and capital to generate greater empowerment of communities and neighborhoods. This empowerment typically begins with a series of community meetings, in which the public is given knowledge, resources, and decision-making power in various aspects of community investment at any number of scales. While “empowerment” and “engagement” can mean many things, in this context these activities have the purpose of placing the ability to affect meaningful change and resource allocation into the hands of a community.

Significant challenges block an easy adoption of this emerging market, especially in the global financial and lending institutions, which make up just part of a large and extremely rigid financial system which is designed to minimize risk in any form. The result of this resistance is that PID has found limited purchase in projects which are charitable in nature, and the field has been dominated by not-for-profit and university organizations and efforts on a relatively small scale.

The development of larger and more systematic solutions must be developed in the for-profit design and development industry in order for a more significant market transformation to take place. The key to the success in PID solutions will not be in simply determining how to be more efficient with professional resources, but in becoming actively resourceful in creating professional partnerships, funding networks, and refining the vocabulary of engagement to include terms of reduced risk and higher benefit; learning to translate the value into the language and syntax of the lending industry in control of most capital investment resources.

The fundamental challenge to the growth of PID is the perception in the development and lending industry that the public is the enemy of development, and the perception among the public that all large development proposals are driven by greed and represent the threat of displacement or deterioration of quality of life to the resident population. In many cases this fear of exchange results in a self-fulfilling prophecy, wherein the public is given little to no opportunity to have their views heard or represented in meaningful decision-making, receiving no known benefit in exchange for perceived sacrifice, and the relationship becomes quickly adversarial between the parties. In “Community Property” Dana Cuff explores the connection of contemporary American attitudes towards property rights to that of property justice: “Through a sequence of local urban debates, communities, architects, and developers come to understand the limits of their authority over property, the extent of their obligations, and the lengths to which they must go in order to prevail. An informal series of precedents is established by contentions that set expectations for future situations. Thus contention is an effective mechanism for pushing property relations into new terrain and for establishing new concepts of justice.”1 Part of the issue

here seems to be that the legal and civic systems largely used by American cities puts these groups on a collision course by requiring evidence of dialogue late in development when it is more difficult to make changes, and only offers opportunities for citizen and stakeholder input at extreme junctures.

Resolving the often tense relationship between lender, developer, and community will take the time, and the steady effort of any trust-based relationship, but reforming City Planning Department practices could be a first step towards an institutionalization and normalization of public engagement. In Washington DC, for example, the City’s Office of Planning (OP) requires any major development plan to submit a Public Participation Plan at the outset of a project entering the due diligence phase, followed by a sequence of public outreach efforts, scheduled public engagement at project milestones (vision/goal setting, recommendations, draft plan), and concluding with a draft plan release and public comment period. While the plan itself may not be perfectly outlined or enforced, it ends where most City requirements begin and offers the beginning of a standard method and sequence for public engagement. The DC OP engagement requires developers to open a dialogue with the communities and neighboring communities in which a development is planned before the project has come to a crossroads of civic conflict.

Without this important interchange of ideas, a developer may have ignored some crucial aspect of a community’s identity, safety, or perceived value, but has gone too far with their planning, partnerships, and financial structuring to make significant changes based on community feedback or resistance.

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BACKGROUND - 2

HISTORY OF DESIGN AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST Public Interest Design sets the stage for a revolutionary mode of transforming the physical world and the public realm by connecting architects, engineers, and contractors to populations which have rarely had direct or meaningful access to these professionals. PID is a natural next step in the expansive role of the designer as a champion of the public interest, a role that has grown in bursts. This is evidenced by the heavy-handed introduction of boulevards in Paris by Baron Haussmann2 in 1850 to relieve congestion and provide “lungs” to the city; the development and implementation of building codes, setbacks, and infrastructure which came out of the 1893 City Beautiful3 movement in an attempt to provide relief to the desperate health issues among the largely minority poor caused by extreme overpopulation of industrial cities; the idealist “Garden City” proposals of Sir Ebenezer Howard 4 , who outlined a centrally focused town plan which balanced work, nature, life and access to resources in 1898; the obsession of early modernists with conquering societal problems through utopian design - an architecture for the people, serving mankind with healthy cities and mechanically produced homes.

Former Editor in Chief of Architectural Forum, Peter Blake, reflects that “modern architects between the two world wars seemed concerned with the creation of a democratic, egalitarian social order: they were concerned with problems of housing for everyone, with problems of planning humane and healthy communities for all, with sheltering a human family that was about to burst at its seams.”5 Blake’s biased account ignores any shortcomings of the modernist vision, such as the spectacular failure of the modernist super-block public housing projects6. Instead he P a g e 5 | 84

focuses on describing the generational shift away from civic-minded urban prototypes towards the more elitist and symbol-focused style of post-modernism. At the root of this shift in focus is likely a combination of white-flight away from, and active destruction of, city centers, fueled by the Housing Act and Urban Renewal, as well as the re-purposing of the war-factories towards the achievement of the modernist vision of mechanized and pre-manufactured design. Both the extraordinary urban housing pressure and the demand for meaningful design solutions to shelter the masses had evaporated in a short span of years, leaving architects to pursue primarily corporate and private commissions. Without a crisis to solve for, and with the drive towards quantity over quality in the housing market, architecture and planning movements no longer had a clear calling to champion solutions to urban issues through design.

Crises have always provided a catalyst for design and innovation. The housing crisis caused by the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, for example, spurred one of the first city-scale housing projects designed to provide shelter and a path to eventual home ownership for the working poor.

Architecture for Humanity’s Kate Stohr describes a relentless questioning of housing and disaster response worldwide over the past century as boiling down to the fundamental question, “Should design be considered a luxury or a necessity?�7

DESIGN AS A NECESSITY “Should design be considered a luxury or a necessity?”

Kate Stohr, Architecture for Humanity

To understand why access to design, housing, and quality neighborhoods is growing in importance, we must first understand the context in which this trend arises. “Access” is the key word in this context, as political and lending policy has historically been shaped to deny or restrict access, and the various justice movements that have grown up over the past half-century have primarily been focused on providing or enhancing access. Indeed, the progression from the Women’s Rights Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Disabled Rights Movement, to the Green Building Movement can be seen as concentric rings, each informing and reinforcing the next through passing on lessons of the successful and unsuccessful organizing tactics.

SEGREGATION BY POLICY The National Housing Act of 1934 lead to a policy of “redlining” by lending institutions, in which geographic boundaries were established which segregated those who would be eligible for loans and establishing loan rates based on race. “The implementation of this federal policy aggravated the decay of minority inner city neighborhoods caused by the withholding of mortgage capital, and made it even more difficult for neighborhoods to attract and retain families able to purchase homes.”8 This malicious act has had a lasting impact on American culture, prolonging the rift between races through geographic and socioeconomic segregation, and creating enormous social justice issues by reinforcing poverty through denial of access to capital and services.

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Figure 1

The Housing Act of 1949 specifically excluded home renovations from the types of housing eligible for funding, fueling white flight into newly constructed suburbs. This migration was reinforced by the development of the Interstate Highway system, which further carved up urban cores through the seizure of property by eminent domain, and giving low income minority historic neighborhoods little to no say in how or where the planned infrastructure would be placed. These actions further marginalized populations already denied access to the lending industry by creating walls of physical infrastructure.

MODERN MARGINILIZATION The issues of segregation through policy and infrastructure are by no means a thing of the past.

Racial tensions in America have begun to boil over in a tragically long and growing list of national incidents involving police or armed whites and black men and women. Ferguson, Missouri was a flashpoint in 2014 as Michael Brown, a young unarmed black man, was shot by a white police officer. The demographics of Ferguson have been shifting since the 1970s, following the dynamiting of the 33 Pruitt Igoe low-income housing towers of St. Louis. Following the removal of the towers, the majority of counties surrounding St. Louis created policies which effectively banned the construction of Section 8 Housing in their communities, forcing the low income minority populations to re-locate over a generation to just a few counties that had not created such bans, effectively re-locating the problem of concentrated poverty and segregation into a formerly blue collar and predominantly white community, which had relocated to this suburb two generations earlier in white flight from the urban core in the 1950s. There are, of course, a number of other factors at work in these complex and tragic confrontations, but the policy-driven limitations of access to housing and services continue to generate resentment between races.

ORGANIZING FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION This monetary and physical marginalization is just one aspect of the multitude of social justice issues which coalesced into the Civil Rights Movement. This collective action emerged at a time when the architecture profession had turned its back on cities, consolidating the urban poor into underfunded superstructures, and creating unwalkable superblocks and unusable urban plazas in deserted downtowns. Doctor Barbara Brown Wilson, a professor at University of Virginia, P a g e 9 | 84

identifies four key roles of the Civil Rights movement which have become essential hallmarks of success to subsequent rights movements: The Democratic Claim Makers who listen to and then champion the synthesis of the ideas and demands of diverse stakeholders; Knowledge Brokers, who link the identified needs to the public through clear policy proposals and solutions; Resource Mobilizers, who help leverage access to funding, media, and other empowering resources; and Alliance Builders, who expand a movement’s power and visibility through brokering links to other groups and movements with sympathetic (though occasionally divergent) aims.9 The organizational power of the Civil Rights movement was replicated and expanded upon for the advocacy for the Americans with Disabilities Act, and was used again in the creation of the Green Building Movement. The explosive growth of the Architecture for Humanity model of community engagement and design in the early 2000s signaled a generational shift in design towards a desire for design to serve people in a meaningful way. PID is largely the result of the simultaneous arrival of design and social movements towards a public demand for and institutional response to increased representation, transparency, sustainability, and equity.

DEFINING “PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN” The concept of designing for the public interest has been discussed for decades in different forms, with aspects of the idea referred to as Democratic Design, Not-for-profit Design, CommunityCentered Design, Social Impact Design, Design for the Greater Good, ProBono Design, Design for Development, Design for Social Justice, Humanitarian Design, DoGood Design, etc. Whether it was the public housing initiatives of the 1950s, urban revitalization championed by the Congress for New Urbanism, or other (mostly flawed or subverted) top-down approaches to applying design solutions to primarily benefit the poor, the common thread has been the idea of service.

The major shift in these previous ideas and the emerging movement is a shift in design representation, rights, and decision-making – designing with a community rather than designing for a community. As with most new fields, the vocabulary has shifted widely as the process, product, and participants have begun to take focus through the disparate efforts of dozens of organizations and individuals worldwide.

Figure 2 P a g e 11 | 84

Figure 3

The definitions given by Public Architecture, the Center for Public Interest Design at Portland State University, +PUBLIC Journal, the BC Workshop, and Design Corps all include statements centering on serving the under-served, inclusiveness and rights, and accessibility. The Design Corps has built the most comprehensive research, approach, and codification of the movement that exists to date, serving as the movement’s “knowledge brokers” 10 . This organization champions the catalogue and collection of success stories from around the world through their “SEED Network” awards, leads two annual conferences (Structures for Inclusion and the Public Interest Design Institute), and is striving to gel this new direction for design and development through its work in the academic and professional spheres. With this in mind, this definition and phrasing of the concept will serve as the basis for the discussion from here on. Design Corps’ SEED Network defines Public Interest Design’s purpose as being “To advance the right of every person to live in a socially, economically, and environmentally healthy community.” 11

TYPES OF PID The often tense relationship between developers and the community in which they intend to develop offers an opportunity to use PID as a tool to pre-emptively mediate communication between the community and the developers, creating a common ground for communication and a forum for facilitated exchange. If applied with thought and respect, PID can serve as a form of conflict resolution and consensus building through community dialogue, provided the developers demonstrate strong listening and communication skills, and provide clear opportunities for the community’s input to affect the outcome of the development’s proposal and decision making.

The more common use of PID, and perhaps the place where the most meaningful industry development has taken place in the past two decades, is in post-disaster community engagement.

Whether the source of the disaster is based on natural events, failure of infrastructure, or acts of terror, the swift engagement of a suddenly displaced population in a dialogue about re-building priorities and solutions is a critical step to get right. The use of PID should be used here to create a forum of empowerment and listening, where the voices of the community are directly communicated to the lending, insurance, development, and non-government organizations (NGOs) with a stake in rebuilding.

The highest and best application of PID is not in “pre-emptive mediation” or disaster recovery, but in the establishment of a baseline of community vision and goal prioritization before a developer’s pressure or the desperation following a disaster are factors in the discussion. These are also among the most difficult methods of PID to enact, as there is no event to catalyze a P a g e 13 | 84

perceived need for community discussion or engagement. It is critical to develop solutions around this use of PID, however, as the majority of communities in need of real empowerment and representation have been victims of the slow-moving disaster of neighborhood-scale disinvestment.

EARLY PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN The natural, infrastructural, human, and economic catastrophes of the first years of the 21st Century in America were each followed by some of the most scrutinized, large-scale attempts at engaging the public in a meaningful dialogue about design. 

NATURAL DISASTER - Greensburg, KS

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INFRASTRUCTURE DISASTER - New Orleans, LA

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HUMAN DISASTER - New York, NY – Ground Zero

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ECONOMIC DISASTER – Kansas City, MO – Manheim Park Neighborhood

In each of these cases, an entirely different approach or set of approaches was taken to develop a set of meaningful interactions with the public. While this need for invention in the field represented the start of an exciting new way of designing and engaging the public, the failures in communication, follow-through, and generally experimental nature of these initial efforts demonstrate a field in need of wider development, consideration, standards of practice, and oversight.

GLOBAL ECONOMIC CATALYST The global economic recession of the late 2000s through early 2010s, sometimes referred to as the “Great Recession�, clearly illustrated the splintered dependencies and flaws in the structure of the emerging world economy, and serves as an indicator that the 20th century top-down national-scale optimization of development and industry cannot (and should not) survive the scale transition to a truly global market. The Recession’s catastrophic market implosion was, in fact, triggered by poor real estate lending and investment practices, market mechanisms which pit banks against the success of communities, and segregation of development investment from local economic ecologies.

The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 funneled an enormous flow of government funding for projects of many types and scales through the United States economy in just under three years. As architecture, planning, and other design firms floundered and fragmented in the devastated real estate development market, the industry shifted attention to new markets and client types as a mode of survival, following a portion of the new source of stimulus funding, which happened to be optimized for use by non-government organization and not-for-profit business models. The result of this change has been a shift towards using design as a vehicle to empower developments which are built upon community vision, with for-profit agencies collaborating deeply with, and borrowing from, the not-for-profit business practices, and vice versa.

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“The recession was really a catalyst for us, I had always thought about having a not-forprofit design firm, and the economic crash really got the wheels turning on that idea.”

Greg Kearly, Inscape Studio/Publico Founder

Though the Recession and government stimulus served as an effective catalyst, the design industry was beginning a shift toward a more inclusive mode of development practice prior to the crash, building on the strategies and lessons of the civil rights, disabilities rights, and environmental design movements. “It is about the positive growth of our species and consequently cannot be exclusive to certain social classes. We are a single community, a community that must take the time to rebuild trust and to bolster the growth of one another” 12.

This emergent market is being driven by the design profession, and has become a top priority for firms globally, though it is unclear how the industry can successfully make a full shift towards a mode of community-empowered design when the real-estate industry has been optimized for money, liability, and professional roles to function and flow in a system structured around a developer client. A growing crowd of organizations is focused on developing new methods, financial structures, and professional flows to allow the market to move toward a development system which prioritizes the bottom-up goals of communities over the top-down goals of a few wealthy individuals and companies.

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METHODOLOGY - 3

BUSINESS APPROACH There are a wide range of organization types attempting to incorporate PID, or elements of PID into every day, and in some cases, core practice. Predominantly, PID is still being implemented by not-for-profit organizations, both in stand-alone firms, as programs of NGOs, and in University classes and programs. The types of efforts and methods of engagement vary widely between each approach. A growing trend in for-profit, market-driven architecture and urban planning firms is to provide discounted or donated service to community projects. As the early community engagement process is typically initiated through un-funded activities or through grants available to not-for-profits but not to for-profit agencies, firms treat the effort as an overhead activity, chalked up to marketing or firm social commitments such as the 1+ initiative.

A somewhat successful model of pro-bono focused design in Kansas City has been Eco Abet, an organization which pairs teams of designers with community project leaders. These teams identify needs for a full day design charrette, with a goal of providing community projects with an injection of resources to aid with funding and build momentum. In some cases, the community and design teams find ways to partner beyond the single day of combined effort in order to help provide a deeper set of resources and project impact. There remains, however, a disconnect between the expectations of the community organizations and the designers on what the deliverable from this effort will be, and what a single day of combined design effort can actually produce, no matter how talented or committed the team. This shortfall is a good barometer for this type of effort as a whole, as it is an excellent effort in which to participate. But again, when P a g e 19 | 84

the design and construction industry is booming, and individuals and firms are busy with paying projects, these charitable efforts become a secondary priority and are rarely pushed through with a sustained effort. In many cases, PID is not implemented in a conscious way, as the community projects start as labors of love, which designers assist through recurring professional investment and by leveraging professional networks to build project capacity.

A few of the many models of providing PID services to communities can be summarized based on the legal organizational status: not-for-profit, for-profit, and the rare symbiotic not-for-profit/forprofit organization. At three different scales and types of businesses, it will be valuable to review a case study of each type of business structure in order to get a more complete picture of the limitations and opportunities afforded by each.

Not-for-Profit PID Model – MASS Design ORIGIN Model of Architecture Serving Society (MASS) Design Group is a not-for-profit design firm with a mission to “research, build, and advocate for architecture that promotes justice and human dignity.” The organization emerged from early partnership and incubation by Partners In Health (PIH), an international NGO, starting with the design of a hospital in Rwanda using community centered design strategies. As MASS evolved and grew, it kept many of PIH’s strategies, such as immersing in local culture, focusing on community priorities, and creating projects with long-term employment opportunities for locals.13 PRINCIPLES This is an outcome-driven firm, eschewing the traditional project development categories to focus instead on impacts such as equity, resilience, education, and health. Among the principles used

by MASS is the concept of local fabrication, which relies on local labor, regional material sourcing, training and education, and investing in the dignity of the places served. As a mission-driven firm, they tend to approach organizations as “partners” rather than “clients”, an important distinction!

Many of the partners have not worked with architects and require guidance through the development process. Capacity building is at the heart of each project and activity the firm undertakes, with an increasingly diverse mix of staff roles consisting of only 35 architects out of 70 staff persons in 2 offices, with the remaining roles focusing on various forms of community engagement and capacity building.

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Figure 4

Figure 5

OPERATIONS + METRICS In practice, MASS differentiates from the typical architecture community by giving special focus to immersion during the early phases and design phase of the project, and targeted evaluations that go well beyond a typical “post occupancy survey” and focus on the influence of design on health and social outcomes. This analysis includes “horizontal” metrics, comparing projects across their portfolio in terms of social, economic, and environmental impacts, as well as “vertical” metrics, providing project-specific in-depth qualitative and quantitative studies.

FINANCES + IMPACT The financial structure of the firm targets 50% of revenue to come from design fees, 25% from project-based grants, and 25% from philanthropic activities. Of the philanthropic moneys they raise, they focus on building the fund primarily with unrestricted funding which is not tied to a specific project or place, in an effort to balance the projects that have less funding capacity and great need. While most of their work is with not-for-profit organizations, this is their least profitable type of partner, as compared with foundation work, which is their most profitable. By working in communities which primarily have never worked with architects before, the firm is able to work with great freedom from competition and choice of partners which suit their philosophies.

For Profit Market Driven Design Firm Model - Gensler Baltimore ORIGINS Gensler is a large for profit architecture and design firm with 46 offices worldwide. Through a company sponsored employee engagement event, an opportunity to explore a new communityfocused branch of design was identified and then funded as a research project. The research project became of special interest to several within Gensler’s Baltimore office, who sought ways to shift their business model to purposefully seek community engagement and development projects. This became known as “4th Sector” projects, representing a client or project type which may not fit the typical development conventions. Though the initial assumption was that these projects would coalesce into a studio within the firm, in practice it became clear that “4th Sector was not a confined studio of social impact projects but an overall approach to design, defined by value-driven methods, human-centered strategies, and empathetic processes.”14

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PRINCIPLES Gensler encouraged regular staff attendance of local neighborhood and community meetings, where employees often found themselves serving as facilitators and connectors between community and the development industry. Involvement with community groups led to projects, but also helped project leaders to realize opportunities for engagement in other projects. Firm leaders worked to integrate community engagement and inclusion as a practice principle, rather than as a separate studio or firm within the firm. One of the key changes to practice was the hiring of a new staff member with the title “social impact design strategist�, a visual communication expert with a strong background in community work, to develop concise graphics to aid in explaining complex ideas, design considerations, funding, demographics, or other information impacting a community.

Figure 7

OPERATIONS + METRICS Developing a new design ethos included cultivating a number of firm thought leaders to serve as a core knowledge group within the firm, providing leadership and education to the firm as a whole.

Through cultivating this group, they have also created an internal firm-wide tool kit “to guide projects towards more community-oriented outcomes.”

FINANCES + IMPACT From a financial standpoint, the projects specifically dedicated to public interest design (refered to as “4th Sector”) only accounts for 2-3% of this office’s revenue, but has had a significant impact on both firm culture and on the depth of service on other projects. The firm uses qualitative and quantitative information to assess project impact. Qualitative measures include anecdotes and narrative storytelling from project leaders and community members, including new potential community partnerships or connections. Quantitative measures include the number of community partners engaged, levels of community participation, internal basic financial information, and quantification of any funds the firm assisted in attracting to a project. Among the practice benefits measured by Gensler is the increased ability to attract and retain millennial employees who are drawn to the social agenda of the firm. While this business approach represents a growing trend among design firms to shift away from considering community focused work to be automatically pro-bono, and have started to see it as valuable, the model still relies on a combination of volunteered staff time, pro-bono work, and side consulting to offset the overhead costs.

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For Profit / Not-for-Profit Hybrid (Symbiotic) PID Model – Inscape Studio/Publico ORIGIN Inscape Studio began as a typical for profit architecture firm, which fell on hard times during the Great Recession, like so many firms. Inscape’s leadership saw a special opportunity to connect their relationships with community not-for-profit organizations, helping to build capacity and start development projects. Inscape Publico was launched as a stand-alone not-for-profit operated separately, but in conjunction with the for profit organization. Inscape Studio/Publico now includes two businesses under one roof, an architecture studio and a not-for-profit design studio. This gives the tandem business the ability to serve some clients at a reduced rate or through direct application for grants that can only be directed to not-for-profit organizations. 15 PRINCIPLES The move to expand and rebuild the for profit business model to include a not-for-profit organization provided a way to access funding streams which allowed them to cover the timeconsuming and intensive front-end work of attending regular community meetings, schematic drawings, fundraising assistance, etc. The dual-organization shares office space, though they operate autonomously. Inscape Publico (the not-for-profit arm) specifically focuses on assisting not-for-profit organizations with concept and schematic design, developing packages which serve as a fundraising platform. This phased distinction of scope provides a clear deflection point between the not-for-profit effort and for-profit work.

Figure 8

OPERATIONS + METRICS The not-for-profit work typically occurs during the early stages of design, and the relationships formed often result in the for profit arm of the organization as the market rate architecture firm, after capital funds have been raised. In addition to the schematic and concept work, the organization has also found purpose in helping not-for-profits connect with funders and cowriting grants for funding. The specific services offered are described as architecture, planning, feasibility & programming, and envisioning. Structurally, Inscape Publico does not have any P a g e 27 | 84

designers on staff, but subcontracts the work to Inscape Studio, which avoids the need for this branch of the dual-organization to have separate insurance, staff, or other resources that would be duplicated and wasteful. The staff for Inscape Publico includes an Executive Director, an Outreach Director, and a Design Director, who are also Inscape Studio employees, splitting their time between organizations. The firm also employs a Development Director.

FINANCES + IMPACT Under a recovering economy, Inscape’s growing portfolio of socially focused work has resulted in greater interest from potential employees, who are drawn to social benefit focused work. While the not-for-profit arm offers substantially discounted fee for service, they do not offer pro-bono services, which they view in part as a test of organizational capacity. In addition to this, the notfor-profit also relies on direct fundraising and grants to balance expenses. Fee for service work only accounts for 20% of Inscape Publico’s funding, and the remainder comes from corporate sponsorships, donations, and event ticket sales.

One of the main challenges, it seems, is that most of the projects which have emerged from this dual-practice model are extremely small, and the not-for-profit branch has yet to balance the money raised to the expenses of the organization, without relying on additional donations or “in kind” (another word for pro-bono) services from the for-profit arm. The organization(s) follow up with clients using a post occupancy evaluation survey, but have not collected much quantitative data on their projects.

WHO PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN IS FOR Communities are networks of individuals who identify with each other based on a variety of factors including geography, philosophy, religion, profession, business owners, residents, age, and so on. Generally, in Public Interest Design, “Community” refers to a neighborhood, a group of neighborhoods, or villages comprised of individuals who lack both the personal and collective means to procure assistance through conventional professional design and development engagement methods. The clarity of this generalization breaks down in reality, as neighborhoods can often include factions and divides that are not always easy to address a-politically.

“Building trust with diverse cultures involves listening, because the answer is in the room.”

Saundra Hayes, former Manheim Park Neighborhood Association President

BNIM Principal, Bob Berkebile, commenting on the most successful methods he has found in dealing with the challenge of diverse community and stakeholder opinions, agendas, and viewpoints suggests, “the best way to be successful in engagement is to listen carefully – to everyone – and to communicate openly and honestly – even if what you have to say isn’t what someone wants to hear. More often than not, being able to say ‘I hear and respect what you’re saying, but the reality is this, as I understand it’, may disappoint someone, but will affirm them in knowing their opinion has been heard and contributed to the overall decision-making.”16 In one of his current projects, the Westport Commons, Bob’s development group and BNIM have engaged the neighborhood associations surrounding the property, the public at large, local and regional businesses, the Kansas City Missouri School District and other diverse stakeholder groups throughout the design and development process.

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WHO PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN BENEFITS While the methodology of Public Interest Design creates a sequential mode of dialogue between designers and community members, and often with development stakeholders. The measure of a successful PID process is in the identification and progression of a community’s goals. There are many institutional advantages to reversing the fortunes and future of a community. Looking to which institutions stand to gain the most from this activity, beyond the improved life and livelihood of residents, could inform a stakeholder group that has not previously been engaged in a meaningful way.

The primary beneficiary of improvement is the community itself, specifically the residents, who will have improved access to resources and an increased quality of life in the process of successful PID engagement and development, or at the very least, will have a clearer picture of how they would like to see the community change over time.

As residents and community businesses see inclusive investment begin to occur, either in larger catalyst projects or in more incremental works, an effort to follow success with success can lead to individual home owners making property improvements. In some cases, job training and retainment programs associated with PID projects can transform former home renters into stable home owners. More earners and improved properties will both reduce the cost of support services and increase taxable revenue from a community, an incremental but tremendously valuable trend to a City or local government.

Though many basic improvements will not require the service of an architect, engineer, or developer, most will require a network of quality contractors. Larger projects which emerge from PID processes and long-term plans will also benefit the design and development industry in the creation of new projects which can be completed for a fee.

In addition to increased municipal vitality, a community on the mend will typically see a shift from home rental to home ownership, as well as increased home improvement. This trend comes with an increase in need for mortgages, leases, and home loans, all activities which directly benefit the lending institutions, especially banks and insurers.

Finally, a community that is increasing home investment and quality of life will trend towards becoming a healthier community, as families can afford health insurance, care, and treatments, some for the first time. The reduction in uninsured emergency room visits and other healthrelated needs of a community will directly benefit local hospitals and care facilities, as well as the health and life insurance institutions.

Increasing property values and earnings are the hallmarks of gentrification, so as improvements are made, incremental efforts should be made to provide a suite of resources to residents, and to empower the neighborhood associations to take a more direct role in decision-making regarding future development. Saundra Hayes of Manheim Park reflects, “There is a way to spend money that induces dependency, but there’s also a way to spend money that creates empowerment – you have to build with us, you can’t build for us.”17 P a g e 31 | 84

WHEN TO USE PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN So what type of project qualifies as requiring the use of Public Interest Design? There are many projects with a standard client-architect arrangement in which PID will not be a project requirement or request where it may still be appropriate to use aspects of PID to ensure a successful overall project. There are also instances where public input is vital, but the type of input is not appropriate to include full decision-making over the details of a project. There are projects in greenfields where there is no existing community, and there are important projects intended for the improvement of community life which may not seem important to residents.

For any project impacting the quality of life or livelihoods of a resident community, the phrase “anything about us, without us, isn’t for us” rings true. Poor residential neighborhoods and communities are arguably the client PID is best designed to serve. Helping to empower a community of low average wage earning residents through meaningful engagement and access to professional resources is the cornerstone of PID. In the case of developing major infrastructure improvements, such as replacing storm sewers, upgrading electrical grid service, or offering a new recycling program to residents, the net result of these investments will tend to be mostly invisible and typically unrequested, but can have a drastic impact on quality of life.

In the end, PID is appropriate in any circumstance when the quality of life or livelihood of a community is likely to be affected by the decisions and prioritization of capital investment.

THE START OF A STANDARD DesignCorps’ “SEED” network and certification system is an adaptation of the US Green Building Council’s “LEED” Rating System. LEED was first released in 2001 as a method of categorizing, prioritizing, and putting a common scale of measurable strategies to the then complex task of designing and building green buildings. LEED had the net effect of standardizing the green building industry, largely by creating a common language and ecology of value among developers, contractors, architects, engineers, financers, and other stakeholders. SEED was created to instill a commonality in professional practice of PID and an equivalent set of community defined, rather than industry defined, prioritization of goals and strategies.

The SEED Network refines this mission through 5 guiding principles, based on a survey of 200 founding members: 1.

Advocate with those who have a limited voice in public life

2.

Build structures for inclusion that engage stakeholders and allow communities to make decisions

3.

Promote social equality through discourse that reflects a range of values and social identities

4.

Generate ideas that grow from place and build local capacity

5.

Design to help conserve resources and minimize waste

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IMPLEMENTING THE SEED METHODOLOGY The acronym “SEED� stands for Social Equity and Environmental Design, mimicking the LEED acronym for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Like LEED, the purpose of SEED was to create a common syntax and vocabulary to the given subject, suggesting a common valuation and prioritization of concepts by all involved parties. However, in lieu of the rigid LEED Checklist of densely weighted points and requirements, SEED relies on the act of proper community engagement to establish the baselines, goals, and priorities, and the measure from that point onward is against those agreed to by the community and various project stakeholders. The SEED Methodology was developed by Design Corps to serve as a guide for establishing a clear and scalable sequence of engagement for meaningful community dialogue. 18 The process is categorized into nine steps: Step 1: Engaging Community Participation Proactive dialogue with diverse community stakeholders, who have participated in a process which identifies project challenges and defines goals. This engagement can take a wide variety of forms and formats.

Step 2: Identifying Critical Issues Local and project challenges unique to each community, identified by social, economic, and environmental categorization.

Step 3: Defining Goals Relating the aims of the project to the specific community needs being addressed, through clear and measurable goal setting. The collaborative development of the goals gives a process for dialogue regarding expectations and accountability for all parties.

Step 4: Research and Data Collection This broad activity can take a wide range of forms, depending on the challenges and goals of the project, but must be both qualitative and quantitative.

Step 5: Setting Benchmarks Project benchmarks serve as a starting line to measure progress towards goals.

Step 6: Defining Performance Measurement Performance measurements can occur at regular intervals or project milestones, depending on the type of information needed, which are measured against the benchmarks set at the outset of the project to gauge overall progress.

Step 7: Developing a Timeline A timeline becomes the tool by which incremental progress is communicated throughout the project, and can include incremental measures of the project milestone/increment goals as compared to measured performance.

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Step 8: Documenting and Reporting Results It is critical that project outcomes and impacts are known, so that all parties are aware of overall progress and can learn from any pitfalls or successes.

Step 9: Evaluation and Reflection The final accountability for the overall accomplishment of the goals identified at the start of the project, allowing for consideration of the complete picture of the project with the benefit of hindsight, and the identification of project successes and failures for incremental process improvement.

A project can go through the SEED Evaluator, to provide a high-level evaluation of overall engagement, goal setting, and performance to help improve the engagement process and communication methods of architects and planners. A project can achieve SEED Certification after completing an Evaluation by following specific recommendations and through good documentation of the accomplishment of community goals. The SEED methodology has also been incorporated into multiple LEED Certification Pilot credits, offering additional credits to projects which offer both documented environmental and community impacts.

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CASE STUDIES – 4

GROUND ZERO – NEW YORK, NY Two planes slamming into a pair of iconic buildings on a clear September morning is an image burned into the collective memory of the people of the United States. As time passed after September 11th, a grieving nation wondered what would become of the gaping wound in the fabric of New York City, and most everyone had an opinion about what should be done to honor the tragedy and heroism of that important day in the Nation’s history. This was a tough time to start experimenting with Public Interest engagement methods, but disaster often serves as a catalyst for innovation. In a city where the most recent public dialogue about large building projects was a massive Frank Gehry proposal for a new Guggenheim Museum to be built on the East River. The past decade had seen new designs for the city by Rem Koolhaas, Aldo Rossi, Bernard Tschumi and other big-name architects, and so there was a newfound atmosphere of interest in bold design. The Lower Manhatten Development Commission (LMDC) and the Port Authority hired Beyer Blinder and Belle for the World Trade Center project, a firm known for more commercially focused, rather than design focused, work. This approach was somewhat at odds with the outpouring of interest and more adventurous public attitude towards architecture and design.

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Figure 9

Figure 10

The architect, LMDC, and Port Authority produced a number of early sketches for the site which were taken literally by an impatient public that didn’t understand the design process. CNN created a special website and invited people to submit designs, which gave an (at the time) innovative outlet to people who wanted to create something immediately. As the design process continued, the initial design proposals were opened up to two other firms, showing a total of 6 designs for the site at a press conference. All 6 were negatively received and it was clear that the process had been developer-centric with little-to-no real input from the public on actual program elements beyond the existence of a memorial on the site. Shortly after this, a group called the Civic Alliance hosted a public session it called “Listening to the City” in one of the largest meeting rooms in the city. LMDC and Port Authority were pulled in as sponsors. A room of over 4000 citizens around tables of 10 were engaged using an instant polling technology regarding the 6 designs. “by the

end of the day, the public had made it clear that it found the six plans to be banal, lacking in vision, excessively devoted to commercial concerns, and inadequate as settings for the kind of memorial they had hoped to see.”19 This engagement process went on throughout the design of the former World Trade Center site, through hundreds of small and large meetings over several years – some methods more successful than others - and engaging many sub groups and scales to different ends, primarily around building a general consensus – perhaps all that is truly possible given the size of the interested audience. The amazing turn that came about through these various processes of engagement was a turning of the public sentiment from being against large, ambitious projects and instead insisting that the project must gain more of these qualities. “for most of the middle decades of the twentieth century, into the seventies – the notion of public participation in planning seemed synonymous with the idea of protest. People became involved to stop projects, not to get them started.”20 The extraordinary emotional circumstances of the WTC devastation and memorial certainly served as a catalyst to this newfound boldness. Pairing this new interest in engagement with some experimental tools, such as: 

publicly accessible online design submissions to solicit ideas



displaying proposal models in large shop windows at Christmas with comment cards and a website for online comments – both of which included boxes for participants to identify their relationship to the project (rescue worker, resident, survivor, etc.)



Public hearings with simulcast audiences and a complex video tool (which failed)

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

Large engagement meetings with limited presenters, facilitated table conversations, and electronic voting with real-time displayed results

These methods represent the start of the incorporation of technology into public engagement.

Rather than “Public Interest Design”, however, the engagement methods and decisions the public was allowed to actually affect would be better characterized as “Public Input Design”. Though the process was hit-or-miss in effective implementation of meaningful dialogue, the result was the initial intersection of technology and public interaction with the most diverse and emotionally engaged audience possible, and was the start of something big.

Figure 11

NEW ORLEANS PRINCIPALS – NEW ORLEANS, LA In 2005, as the waters of Hurricane Katrina and Ike slowly ebbed away, the Lower 9 th Ward was a natural disaster zone unparalleled in recent US memory, destroying or damaging over 850,000 homes. Ultimately it was determined that the real disaster was a failure of public infrastructure, which New Orleans had come to rely on more and more as its natural wetland “shield” against storm surges had been eroded to nothing due to pollution and shipping de-regulation since the 1960s. The overwhelming conversation at the time was about global warming and the rising oceans threatening the future of the city, with some calling for the city to be abandoned.

Figure 12

Within two months of the disaster, the US Green Building Council held the annual Greenbuild Conference in Atlanta, GA. During this 4-day event, they invited Bob Berkebile to lead a team in hosting and facilitating an open dialogue with conference attendees, along with a representative group of government and community representatives about what the future of New Orleans could be. After four charrettes, engaging 160 participants in deep deliberations, sharing, and P a g e 43 | 84

dialogue, the team gathered their notes and began to develop the New Orleans Principles, which focused on ten areas bridging cultural, civic, and sustainable foundational principles seen as essential to the successful reconstruction of the city.

1. Respect the rights of all citizens of New Orleans.

2. Restore natural protections of the greater New Orleans region.

3. Implement an inclusive planning process.

4. Value diversity in New Orleans.

5. Protect the city of New Orleans 6. Embrace smart redevelopment.

7. Honor the past; build for the future.

8. Provide for passive survivability.

9. Foster locally owned, sustainable businesses.

10. Focus on the long term.

Several months later, Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research and the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources selected the Holy Cross/9th Ward neighborhood as a pilot neighborhood in which to apply the New Orleans Principles. Bob Berkebile, Bill Browning, and Bill Becker (affectionately referred to as the “B� team) led an engagement process beginning with two on-site planning exercises to assess community needs. Next, they facilitated a design workshop that included a large group of residents, partner organizations, and designers. The focus of these meetings was on how to refine the New Orleans Principles to apply at a neighborhood scale, turning the recommendations of the New Orleans Principles document into action items that could really be coordinated and implemented.

Figure 13

As the Neighborhood took on the goals of building towards being carbon neutral by 2020 and climate neutral by 2030, interest from both individuals and organizations began to grow. The engagement team took all of the input and priorities discussed with the community and created the Sustainable Restoration Plan of Holy Cross/Lower 9th Ward. The Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development (CSED) was born of several Neighborhood Association leaders developing action plans with regard to the ambitious climate goals set through the community charrette process. One after another, NGOs began to bring resources or (in many cases) developed in support of the vision and goals established by the Lower 9th Ward alone, let alone the hundreds that engaged city wide because of the formal adoption of the New Orleans Principles. The vision was big enough to equal the need, and so people showed up to help, creating jobs, training programs, renovating and building new homes and businesses.

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The momentum in New Orleans built over several years until a development renaissance really took hold. Though there is still no shortage of need, and this burst of momentum is now on the wane, the point here is that by community engagement in creating an adventurous and ambitious vision for itself, development and investment can follow, albeit in mostly isolated investment groupings. The development momentum and influx of a new millennial population have severely gentrified some areas of the city, and large development along the riverfront has been systematically proposed in a number of low income communities, threatening the fabric and cohesion these communities gained in the years following Katrina. The New Orleans Principles include several articles on including community in decision making, which have largely been incorporated into projects and processes, but as the vision-driven momentum wanes, it may be difficult to maintain these principles without backing them up with specific policies.

GREENSBURG MASTERPLAN – GREENSBURG, KS As momentum was building in New Orleans, a fresh disaster took the nation’s spotlight, as an EF5 tornado a 1.7 mile wide all but leveled a small town in Southern Kansas. In the aftermath, the town of Greensburg was another case of the public questioning whether it was worth re-building, but once again residents spoke up and made it clear that it was vital to them that their community be rebuilt, if not reimagined. The issues in this case were in many ways similar to that of the Lower 9th Ward, and in many ways different. As a small town, they suffered from the common trend of youth drain, as rural families’ children would grow up and move away, rather than starting businesses or making investments in their home community.

Figure 14 P a g e 47 | 84

BNIM was again asked to begin a process of community engagement, which consisted of community meetings in the center of town under a big tent. Unlike the post-disaster conversations in New Orleans, where community members had been scattered across multiple states, this community’s population had mostly found lodging in neighboring towns or more proximate lodging in FEMA housing in town (operated at a smaller scale and in a much more organized way than in New Orleans), and were able to drive in for community meetings. The result was that the meetings were very large, and occurred at the cusp of the Great Recession. Despite this, through a series of these large community meetings, it was decided to rebuild the town; to create a new green business district, with a commitment that civic buildings would all be LEEDPlatinum certified structures. “During the recovery effort, the public involvement process emerged as one of the most important factors that led to a unified community vision and goals, high performance design, and successful implementation. Over 300 people gathered under a large tent raised on the east edge of town, eager to share their ideas for rebuilding. The tent remained a community gathering space throughout the recovery process, hosting several design workshops, community meetings, and even Sunday morning church service.�21

Figure 15

With growing support from the US Green Building Council, and a newly founded resident NGO, Greensburg Greentown, the population was regularly engaged with resources, training, and access to building professionals that would never have occurred without the commitment to a big vision for the future. Greensburg is now surrounded by a series of wind turbines and boasts an impressive number of LEED-Platinum buildings, making the community net energy neutral or positive. Among other investments that unfolded over time was the active engagement of high school students, many of whom were invited to attend Greenbuild under scholarships for several years, growing the interest and working knowledge of the resident youth, many of whom committed to making Greensburg their home in the long term.

The Public Interest Design aspects of the Greensburg masterplanning process focused on the character and quality of public space and buildings, and resources were built around long-term engagement of students and residential sustainable practices. This combination of engagement and directed investment and resource accessibility is among the most successful examples of the potential of this process.

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Figure 16

“Greensburg is a global example of how clean energy can power an entire community, how it can bring jobs and businesses to a place where piles of bricks and rubble once lay.�

President Barack Obama

HISTORIC MANHEIM PARK VISION PLAN – KANSAS CITY, MO Historic Manheim Park was not hit by a tornado, or a hurricane. No major piece of infrastructure failure or community tragedy struck. The failure was social in nature. Due to a range of factors in urban scale patterns of investment and economy, exacerbated in no small part by the red-lining of the mid-20th century, this neighborhood had been in slow decline for more than half a century.

When Brush Creek Partners hired BNIM to begin a process of engagement with the purpose of developing a vision plan, the area was known as the “murder ZIP code”, the zip code in Missouri with the highest per-capita murder rate. Fifty percent of residential land was empty of housing, and only fifty percent of the remainder was occupied, with only a small portion of this population owning rather than renting property. This is a scene all too familiar in cities across America. The initial process of engagement was met with suspicion and mistrust, but as regular meetings began to provide useful data on the nature of the community, and discussion about ideas, dreams, and goals brought into focus the idea that this was not a development group seeking to “use” the community, but was a genuine conversation about vision, and resource development, and a new attitude of hope.

The engagement process included regular community meetings which initially focused on mapped data such as imaging demographics, location of schools and grocery stores and other community resources, identifying parkland and water issues, and access to jobs. The meetings shifted towards longer-term thinking about a future-state of the neighborhood, projecting what a successful Manheim Park transformation would look like, and then discussing what happened P a g e 51 | 84

to create this new reality. From this process, the Manheim Park Healthy Neighborhoods Initiative - Vision Plan took shape, including the identification of clear goals and strategies broken into concise categories of focus. Included in this report was the identification of two large and underutilized buildings, which were degrading the character and any hope for momentum in the community.

“When everyone’s ideas are taken into account and distilled into something that’s meaningful, the outcome is always better.”

Figure 17

Sam De Jong, BNIM Architects

Figure 18

As Brad Pitt’s Make It Right organization began looking to expand beyond New Orleans, BNIM alerted them to the community identified vision and properties, and a process of investigation began which resulted in an invitation to a local developer, the Dalmark Group to begin a more formal process of assessment. The investigation of revitalizing the Bancroft School site, which had been abandoned and boarded up for over a decade by that time, was inclusive of the community and neighborhood association, through a continued series of engagement meetings, which shifted from vision setting to design and program conversations. The residents were asked to provide real feedback and decisions on what program would be possible to fit into a development project, with some of the funding limitations and boundaries explored and discussed in detail.

The conversation looked beyond just this development, however, focusing on the creation of a larger investment strategic plan and scaling process, inclusive of both design development and measurable job training and creation. This refinement of the Vision Plan was collected in the Manheim Park Development Strategy by BNIM.

Figure 19 P a g e 53 | 84

The Bancroft School was developed using a very creative mix of funding sources, primarily funded by the Missouri Housing Development Commission using low-income housing tax credits, but also leveraging historic tax credits, in-kind material donations from major manufacturers, philanthropic gifts, and financial bundling by a major bank. The resulting project includes a neighborhood association office and meeting space, 50 LEED Platinum certified apartments, both new construction and retrofit within the 100 year old school, green stormwater solutions, community gardens, and more.

Figure 20

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SYSTEM PROPOSAL - 5

UNDERSTANDING THE TYPICAL DEVELOPMENT CYCLE The standard project development system is deeply entrenched in American economic and legal structures, as developers, banks, and the construction industry have collaborated purposefully and indirectly to reduce risk and streamline over the past century. An understanding of the basic flow of this system is foundational to understanding how the system can be adapted, reversed, and put back together.

STAGE 1 - OPPORTUNITY 1. A development project typically starts with a developer identifying an opportunity for a new project or market.

2. The developer then contacts a lawyer to review ownership, costs, and other aspects of the legal scope of site selection and project development.

3. The developer will typically then begin engagement with an architect and likely a general contractor to review building program, scale, and to establish a cost range for development.

STAGE 2 - PLANNING 4. At this point, the developer will review the basic shape of the plan with a lender, who will request a full account of the risks of failure.

5. Any change to zoning or a number of other site concerns may trigger a requirement from the City that evidence of community support be shown prior to granting the requested change.

6. At this point it typically falls to the architect to engage with the local community to convince them that the developer’s building plan is a good one. This conversation can include some P a g e 57 | 84

negotiation between developer and client, which could go as far as minimal community amenities added to the project scope and a few jobs during construction, or could be unacceptable to the community, who have the power to resist the development – a huge risk that can possibly delay a project for years or stop it entirely. This power over the project and process is a key to the contentious relationship between developer and communities.

STAGE 3 - DEVELOPMENT 7. Once the construction cost estimate is optimized for the intended use and any community resistance is “handled�, the developer then finalizes the required project funding, typically by consolidating diverse fund types into a bank loan that will be paid down over a standard period.

8. The City will require construction permits and requires inspections throughout construction.

9. With permits completed, the contractor can begin work on construction of the approved design. Some funding sources will require minority and women owned business participation as well as (increasingly) labor participation. Few funders will include any requirements for local workforce inclusion or training.

STAGE 4 - RETURN 10. Once a building is complete, the property value is realized by the developer either through the sale of the developed property, the operation of a business through property ownership, or by the lease of space through management of the property.

11. Once a building is profitable, the revenue generated creates a pool of money to be leveraged for use on the next development.

Figure 21

Most standard construction, architectural, and consultant contracts are fine-tuned to operate with the developer serving as the client, with liability and risk established with clear hierarchy and with industry accepted precedents. These contracts change slightly over time, as various risks and liabilities are negotiated between parties, but the language clearly supports a developercentric flow of responsibility. Most government grants for housing and other “community good� development are also geared towards Community Development Corporations (CDCs) and forP a g e 59 | 84

profit development agencies with established financial liquidity and experience. The entire cycle of development has been carefully crafted to systematically identify and remove risk during the process of development, though it is a narrow view of risk. Nor does this risk extend to those effected by a new development, such as the risk to local businesses created by the development of a large box store, or the risk of concentrating low-income housing to the goals of a community striving to grow wealth, health, and safety within its borders. In this cycle, the concept of “community engagement” takes on an entirely negative tone, as a fundamental difference in directive exists between a community and developer.

Author Dana Cuff describes an evolving American Pioneer’s concepts of property rights leading to a recent expansion of public rights with regard to real estate, wherein an embattled public negotiates with developers for community space, jobs, amenities, and other benefits to the common good at the expense of the individual development. “The expanded sense of the residents’ Lockean rights and the developers’ duties nurtures fertile soil for local, semipublic, urban, and regional missions. Even in small-scale developments, a justice is forged by inserting collective interests into once-private terrain.” Cuff concludes with an exploration of the ethical requirements of an architect (or urban designers) caught between two masters, “Acting as a steward for the public good jeopardizes the architect’s business relations, but if we do not assume this responsibility, our profession will be marginalized further in a society that already looks at architecture askance.”

THE PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN DEVELOPMENT CYCLE A new way to look at development begins with reversing the process to use community need and vision and prioritizing the development flow of responsibility accordingly. The most critical next step in the Public Interest Design movement is to simplify and codify this cycle into a logical and predictable approach or set of approaches across the design industry. The re-positioning of elements of this system creates a natural “turbulence” in the standardized flow of development money, which equates to risk, making it a difficult proposition for lenders. With this in mind, turning to new and innovative sources of capital may be a logical place to start. There are three primary institutions which have much to gain from reversing blight and empowering low income neighborhoods: 

Municipalities stand to benefit from increased property, earnings, and sales taxes and

reduced reliance on public programs by building wealth within communities. 

Financial Institutions which took “bail out” money during the Recession are required to

make investments in local community initiatives for several more years, and also stand to benefit from a population empowered to make and pay for home improvement loans, mortgages, and other financial traffic. 

The Health Care Industry has a clear interest in building the health of the communities it

serves both ethically and financially.

Perhaps these three, combined with limited philanthropic grants and funding, could combine small but regular amounts of funding towards empowering qualified low-income communities to

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hire a planner or urban designer to engage in a vision-building process with a focus on enhancing existing community wealth, health, and ownership.

A Public Interest Design project can be initiated in a number of ways: a developer seeking to make “best fit” investments that build community, a City with a masterplan derived from a public process which highlights priority areas for attention, a community seeking support for a major hurdle or challenge such as pervasive blight or a natural disaster. As the first and third scenario are the exception, the following model explores the Masterplan scenario.

STAGE 1 - OPPORTUNITY 1. The money a developer spends on the first stages of a project are fairly modest, as it is really intended to be exploratory. With this in mind, Seed money is built from a variety of sources, through a cyclic community investment account with a purpose of building community health and wealth in City neighborhoods with heavy blight and poverty. This fund could use additional philanthropic grants and donations, but should not be dependent on fluctuating funding sources.

2. A City has identified geographic areas of need and has developed prioritization of investment through a public process of some kind.

3. The City engages with partner institutions such as local hospitals and banks around the priority areas. Collectively, the group create a “seed” investment pool which can be combined with grants and philanthropic funding towards hiring a Community Development Corporation

(CDC) to manage an engagement process between a professional planner and the priority neighborhood(s).

4. The planner and neighborhood work through a series of engagement activities to develop a community vision plan built on clearly stated goals and strategies.

5. The second stage of this engagement is in creating a community development plan with the identified vision and goals. This activity should focus on opportunity sites and urbandevelopment strategies which balance economy, ecology, and community to support longterm community vitality. This development planning process should be inclusive of the seed investor group and should include a focus on building resources around development.

STAGE 2 - PLANNING 6. Based on the development plan, the CDC next hires a lawyer, an architect, and contractor to provide schematic proposals for key priority sites, to form the basis of a feasibility study.

7. The planner should serve as a bridge between architect, contractor and community by facilitating recurring conversations connection the vision to the design and program attributes 8. As feasible projects take shape, built on community input and with backing from both the City and a lender, additional funders and investors are sought to build the necessary capital for the project. A successful CDC will be able to take the role of a developer at this point, though if the CDC is not established or deep in solvency, then bringing in a developer may be necessary to satisfy the standard terms of lenders’ agreements.

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9. Since the project itself emerged from a process of constructive community engagement, the risk of a community blocking a development proposal with the City is much less than in the typical development cycle.

STAGE 3 - DEVELOPMENT 12. Once the construction cost estimate is optimized for the intended use the CDC/developer then finalizes the required project funding, typically by consolidating diverse fund types into a bank loan that will be paid down over a standard period.

13. The City will require construction permits and requires inspections of some scopes throughout construction.

14. With permits completed, the contractor can begin work on construction of the approved design. The community can develop its own standards for job development and training, through facilitated negotiation with the design and construction professionals. NGOs and other types of support may be needed to support the training of a ready workforce for the project. The City can be of assistance with streamlining the process of connecting the interested local workforce to the various training programs and certifications required.

STAGE 4 - RETURN 15. Once a building is complete, the property value is realized by the CDC/developer either through the sale of the developed property, the operation of a business through property ownership, or by the lease of space through management of the property.

16. Once a building is profitable, the revenue generated creates a pool of money to be leveraged for use on the next development. The seed investor group will receive the indirect benefit of the investment, so a portion of the revenue should be earmarked for reinvestment as future seed funding for the next projects, and a portion of it should be allocated to the community benefiting from the development to serve as a capacity building fund to support items such as neighborhood meetings, training neighborhood leaders, operational staff for community spaces, funding a neighborhood improvement district, ongoing youth training or activities, etc.

Figure 22

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CONCLUSIONS - 6

OVERCOMING OBSTACLES Despite the great opportunities for reduced risk through community engagement and empowerment, there are significant obstacles which will require strategic and coordinated efforts to overcome on several fronts.

RIGID RISK SYSTEMS The Westport Commons building program has shifted throughout the design, and though Bob Berkebile began with clear ambitions to develop an energy-neutral site with extremely high performance equipment and renewable energy, water recovery, superinsulation, and more performance and health focused attributes, these aspirations have been dramatically reduced to meet the overall development needs. “I used to think that the problem was all with the developers not being creative or visionary enough… but after this experience I realize that it’s really about the rigidity and fear of risk in the lending institutions that drives this.”22 Bob reflects that if the focus is on community, the current financial models don’t easily support investment into community vitality, resilience, and sustainability. The reality of the lending tolerances, the comfort of partners, the strings and limits that come with some of the money sources. A big part of the change needed starts with the worlds of governance, finance, and development – which for decades have created a synergistic relationship which defines a system that is averse to change.

Bob sees that there is potential for this to work, but it’s going to take some clear proof of concept in the form of well documented successful projects, and regular thoughtful engagement of the right people.

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THE RIGHT FUNDING FOR THE RIGHT PROJECT The Bancroft School development in Manheim Park was very successful in that the major developer goals were all met and the major community goals were met. The operational use of the renovated school has fallen short of the community benefit goals and programs discussed but not expressly required for the development. The development process was intensely difficult, given the level of guaranteed commitments to both the funders and the community along with the strict limits on how the primary funding source could be deployed on the project. LEED Platinum was required by Make It Right, Historic Tax Credits were required for the overall financing, and the Missouri Housing Development Commission strictly controlled the dollars per square foot of rentable apartment as well as requiring strict caps on design compensation.

Priorities set by three partners and discussed with the community resulted in a confusing decision-making process compared with a more typical development method. The design team lost a huge amount of money on the project due to the imposed fee caps and intense coordination requirements for meeting the varied commitments, begging the question if this type of development is remotely possible to achieve in a financially sustainable way.

These are just a few of the issues and risks to developing in either system, though it is clear that there is a deep lack of structural and legal definition in the Bancroft (PID) scenario explored. Most of the questions about Public Interest Design can be boiled down to a question of “who pays?” In Architecture for Humanity’s “Design Like You Give a Damn [2]”, contributor Kate Stohr explores project financing, using a long series of tables and a brief narrative to describe a disconnect between financing and place which creates three primary hurdles:

1. The issue of sector-based funding. A problem of working with funding at multiple scales and between different departments.

2. The issue of restrictions. The tangle of strings attached to multiple funding sources can strangle the viability of a project to move forward.

3. The issue of timing. While public financing is slow and restrictive, private funding is extremely risk averse.

Among a host of methods to surmount these hurdles, Stohr describes the usefulness of flexible community grants when an overall development plan is in place, municipal financing for infrastructure development and services, and the increase in public-private partnerships for creative and layered financing schemes. She suggests that the most successful solution, in the experience of Architecture for Humanity, is the creation of community development corporations (CDCs) or economic development authorities (EDAs), which can solve the timing issue by offering access to credit and fund bundling. The idea is that these organizations can be both flexible conduits to funding, but are also accountable to communities for meeting set development goals.

This is, in fact, the route that the Historic Manheim Park Neighborhood Association is beginning to take as the second development phase has gotten underway. Partner organizations who serve multiple communities may not prioritize the development needs of the community, so by removing risk associated with working through partner organizations, the project can then afford the risk of a decision making process which empowers neighborhoods. 23 Stohr concludes that there are four basic considerations to any community development financing structure:

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1.

How are funds to be raised?

2.

What kind of entity will hold and disperse the funds?

3.

What is the legal structure binding the parties?

4.

How is land acquired and who will ultimately own it?

These are basic but critical questions that must become central to new ways of implementing Public Interest Design.

LEARNING FROM THE GREEN BUILDING MOVEMENT The green building movement started with a similar challenge to the PID movement, which is that up until that time green design was associated with a social underclass and was viewed with heavy skepticism. Through the development of the multi-modal industry standard of the LEED rating system, the US Green Building Council spent nearly a decade transforming the perception of green to an elite high bar for the design and construction industry. In my opinion, the green building movement has lost ground with the public and in the industry partly because the goal of the movement has shifted to focus on the original mission of the USGBC, which emphasizes the idea that everyone deserves to enjoy a green building, taking some of the shine from the elite trophy of LEED certification in the eyes of developers. Unlike the Green Building Movement, however, it is entirely inappropriate for PID to be leveraged as an elitist goal, since it should specifically be focused on the opposite of elitist aims. The path to success for this movement will be different, but should be built on the same successful principals of the social and building movements that lead us to it.

NEXT STEPS The next steps recommended from these findings can be summarized as Communication, Policy, Resource Development, and Collaborative Fund Development.

COMMUNICATION Despite the challenges, designers everywhere are working to explore ways to practice Public Interest Design, albeit on mostly small projects using a pro-bono or reduced fee structures, with the primary benefit being publicity and marketing. If this current state is to change, a regular forum for industry dialogue is needed to empower a collective standardization of practice among designers. There are an increasing number of resources dedicated to recognizing and building knowledge in this field including certifications, awards, and conferences. These modes of interindustry sharing that could push the movement toward a more uniform front.

In addition to this growing visibility, a host of key organization types have emerged in the past several years, including for-profit digital public engagement companies such as MySidewalk, University design programs such as the Tulane City Center, not-for-profit Public Interest Design Centers such as the Building Community [BC] Workshop, and not-for-profit Public Interest Design advocacy groups such as Design Corps. These various models offer hope that the architecture, urban design, and planning fields can adapt and incorporate similar modes of active community engagement.

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The next steps are critical for this effort to develop to maturity. These steps will require both coordination and collaboration among multiple industries. In the spirit of the Public Interest Design, this movement should look to the consensus-based and grass-roots organization patterns of the civil and disability rights movements for organizing goals and messaging for each participating group within the effort, but should not shy away from organizing under a single governance structure to ensure clarity in management, representation, and decision-making.

Design Corps is well positioned to become the knowledge broker and industry organizer. If they look to expand their current role as an industry advocate, this group should pay close attention to the lessons and challenges of the organization of the Green Building Movement as they organize. Architects, urban designers, and planners working to practice PID should begin a regular dialogue about the successes, failures, and progress of individuals and their associated firms.

Together these groups should work to share successes widely, build clear case studies, business studies and models, and publish this work in print and video. The movement is still just getting started, so it is an exciting time of structural invention, experimentation, and creativity that can lead to a fundamental transformation in the equity, sustainability, and profit of an industry primed for a shift to a new direction.

POLICY In addition to industry communication on the subject, municipalities, advocates, and activists can take the next step in requiring deeper public interface in a variety of project types, especially focusing on commercial projects in residential districts which may have a change of zoning requirements. Requirement for deeper engagement should be built on successful examples of

other municipal adoption methods, and the possible creation of a national or international standard by one of the “knowledge broker� agencies to create a baseline policy that can be adopted and referenced in a uniform way. On a larger scale, national policy dictates much of the lending industry, and should be inclusive of public engagement in projects which have any impact on the vitality of communities.

RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT Community leaders are usually unpaid individuals who care about their community and are pressed for time, money, and relevant resources. At University of Missouri in Kansas City, Professor Jacob Wagner has developed the Center for Neighborhoods, focused on training and building a library and toolkit for community leaders. This model of leveraging and empowering local leadership is an excellent example of the most basic level of support communities need.

Saundra Hayes served as the Historic Manheim Park Neighborhood Association during the development of the Bancroft School Apartments by Dalmark and Make It Right. She had a business background, but had never lead a neighborhood before, and found mentors and advocates through the support of individuals involved in the engagement process, which led to the development of a scholarship to join a community leadership training class and conference.

This set of training and resources was built up ad-hock in her case, but proved to be an invaluable resource to Saundra’s task of building community engagement and strategies for embracing the planned development and vision. Since then, she has become an advocate and resource to other emerging community leaders. Creating a more systematic method of engagement and P a g e 73 | 84

empowerment of both community leaders and the future leaders in their Boards is a necessary capacity-building step towards larger scale empowerment and representation.

COLLABORATIVE FUND DEVELOPMENT “So who will pay for this?� is the first question most people ask about PID. Per the proposed PID system, a clear next step is to engage representatives from each industry in purposeful dialogue with an aim to develop a number of questions and answers between each industry. This dialogue should be championed by the representative group of PID practitioners through an engagement series to illuminate barriers and develop industry-scale solutions which reduce risk while increasing community empowerment. The AIA, USGBC, and DesignCorps appear to be likely allies in developing and creating a facilitated forum for this dialogue to begin.

Like the development of the Green Building Movement, a consortium of intra-industry stakeholders must be empowered to take leadership in a forum that allows for innovation and collaboration within the context of a shared goal. Unlike the Green Building Movement, this group of stakeholders will not be limited to the design and construction industries, but will by necessity include a much wider group of industries who have very different outlooks, goals, and industry terms. Engaging each in terms of increased benefits and reduced risk may be oversimplified, but is essentially the value proposition that each will need to understand to join the effort with financial and other types of support.

CONCLUSION Design is a necessity. Public Interest Design is a method which can be used to make design accessible to low-income, under-resourced, disaster-struck, and other types of communities in need who lack that capacity. Community access to design begins with the creation of a formal or informal connection between a community and a designer. In partnership, they enter a “dialogue of mutual discovery�24 in which a vision for the future is formed; a vision with specific goals and strategies by which progress towards success can be measured. Strategic investment in development of resources, places, and spaces by a constellation of community partners provides the initial catalyst that can be built into momentum. To build momentum, the final step is to actively build the capacity of a community to the point of empowerment. Empowerment to not only dream of a better future, but to be organized to make choices in the context of that dream.

The successful expansion of Public Interest Design as a method of development will depend on the capacity of the design industry and their like-minded partners to make a clear case of value to communities, developers, lenders, financers, and policy-makers. This has been accomplished many times before by groups who lacked the institutional infrastructure of those who now seek to bring this solution forward. To be successful, however, this advocacy group must begin with a look inward towards core principles, alignment of knowledge and identification of resources, sharing of methods and metrics between organizations, and a refinement of language in order that they should speak with a clearly understood vocabulary to each stakeholder.

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Public Interest Design is a “blue ocean”25 development proposition, as it represents a market that has never before had direct access to or decision-making power about design. To expand the scale of this market to begin to address the enormity of the current and future need, it is critical that Public Interest Design formalize into a clear set of widely understood and shared values, implementation methods, economic structures, and measures of success. There is no lack of interest for helping communities in need to recover and become successful, but the standard development methods are a dead end, as the industry is bound to policies and lending practices that fundamentally do not value long-term investments.

Breaking from the entrenched cycle of investment practices will require building mutual trust between communities, the development industry, and the financial industry. It will need to be better understood as both a process and product, neither of which appear to be easy at this early stage. “Working community is always a messy process, but it’s a good process.”26 With large scale natural disasters measurably increasing in the beginning of the 21st century, as the consequences of industrialization begin to catch up with us, this worthy process represents not just another market opportunity, but could become a necessary standard to implement at various scales in reaction to the crises that are ahead of us. Whether in New Orleans, Lower Manhattan, Rural Kansas, or in a blighted urban core, the value of a community’s ability to define its own future is both fundamental and universal. Breaking from a system that is at odds with this notion is both necessary and worthy of dedication. “To advance the right of every person to live in a socially, economically, and environmentally healthy community.”27

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APPENDIX

REFERENCES Bell, Bryan - editor and Abendroth, Lisa - editor (2015) - DesignCorps. Public Interest Design Practice Guidebook: Seed methodology, Case Studies, and Critical Issues. New York, NY: Routledge.

Berkebile, Bob. Interview with Jeremy Knoll on October 20, 2016 Blake, Peter (1993). No Place Like Utopia: Modern Architecture and the Company We Kept.

New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.

BNIM (2008). Greensburg: The Green Rebirth of a Kansas Community. https://issuu.com/bnim/docs/greensburg_ab2afb8e84bea5 BNIM (2010). Manheim Park Healthy Neighborhoods Initiative – Vision Plan. https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/7006857/manheim-park-healthy-neighborhoodsinitiative-vision-documentBNIM (2013). Manheim Park Development Strategy. https://issuu.com/bnim/docs/manheim_park_development_strategy Cuff, Dana (1998). Community Property: Enter the Architect, or Politics of Form, in Michale Bell and Sza Tsun Leong (eds) Slow Space. New York, NY: Monacelli.

Frampton, Ken (1980). Modern Architecture: A Critical History.

New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.

Goldberger, Paul (2005). Up from Zero: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York.

New York, NY: Random House Trade.

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OpenStax (2016). The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900. U.S. History. http://fileserver.net-texts.com/asset.aspx?dl=no&id=134621 ProActive Practices. Case Studies: Gensler Baltimore (2016). http://proactivepractices.org/case-studies/gensler-baltimore/ ProActive Practices. Case Studies: Inscape Publico (2016). http://proactivepractices.org/case-studies/inscape-publico/ ProActive Practices. Case Studies: Mass Design Group (2016). http://proactivepractices.org/case-studies/mass-design-group/ SEED Awards: https://designcorps.org/seedocs/ Stohr, Kate and Sinclair, Cameron (2006) Architecture for Humanity. Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural responses to Humanitarian Crises. New York NY: Metropolis Books.

Stohr, Kate and Sinclair, Cameron (2012) Architecture for Humanity. Design Like You Give a Damn [2]: Building Change from the Ground Up. New York NY: Harry N. Abrams.

US Green Building Council (2005). The New Orleans Principles. http://www.usgbc.org/Docs/Archive/General/Docs7742.pdf Venkatesh, A.S. (2000). American Project: the Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press Washington DC Office of Planning, Neighborhood Planning Division Public Engagement Standards (2009). http://planning.dc.gov/publication/public-engagement-standards-plans-and-projects

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: HOLC 1936 security map of Philadephia showing redlining of lower income neighborhoods. The HOLC maps are part of the records of the FHLBB (RG195) at the National Archives II. Figure 2: John Cari + Megan Jett Public Interest Design primer graphics describing. https://www.behance.net/gallery/4914279/Public-Interest-Design Figure 3: Manheim Park Community Vision Charrette – Manheim Park HNI Vision Plan Figure 4: Umubano Primary School, located in Kabeza, Kigali, Rwanda. Photo credit Iwan Baan Figure 5: Butaro Doctor’s Housing by MASS Design campus. Photo credit Iwan Baan Figure 6: Gensler concept diagram of new market group - Gensler Baltimore Figure 7: Example public data communication diagram - Gensler Baltimore Figure 8: Operational diagram demonstration separation of scope by business type - Inscape Studio/Publico Figure 9: Initial press release showing 6 design concepts for Ground Zero - Up from Zero Figure 10: Listening to the City event in 2002, engagement of 4000 individuals in design dialogue - Up from Zero Figure 11: Ground Zero memorial development under construction – photo credit International Business Times Figure 12: Lower 9th Ward after Katrina. Photo credit Associated Press.

Figure 13: Lower 9th Ward Community Charrette. Photo credit BNIM. Figure 14: Greensburg charrette. Greensburg Masterplan Report. Photo credit Assassi Productions Figure 15: Greensburg engagement under the big tent. photo credit BNIM. Greensburg Masterplan Report Figure 16: Greensburg Masterplan rendering. Rendering by BNIM. Greensburg Masterplan Report Figure 17: Manheim Park engagement plan. Manheim Park Development Plan by BNIM. P a g e 81 | 84

Figure 18: Manheim Park engagement sequencing plan. Manheim Park Development Plan by BNIM. Figure 19: Phased neighborhood development plan. Manheim Park Development Plan by BNIM. Figure 20: Employment and training diagram. Manheim Park Development Plan by BNIM. Figure 21: Typical Development Sequence Model. Created by Jeremy Knoll Figure 22: Public Interest Design Development Sequence Model. Created by Jeremy Knoll

ENDNOTES

1

Dana Cuff, Community Property: Enter the Architect, or Politics of Form

2

Ken Frampton. Modern Architecture: A Critical History. Chapter 2: Infrastructural Urbanism, p24.

3

OpenStax U.S. History. Chapter 19: The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900.

4

Ken Frampton. Modern Architecture: A Critical History. Chapter 2: Infrastructural Urbanism, p27.

5

Peter Blake. No Place Like Utopia. Chapter 1, p5.

6

A.S. Venkatesh American Project: the Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto

7

Kate Stohr. Design Like You Give a Damn. 100 Years of Humanitarian Design, p34.

8

When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor By William Julius Wilson. 1996. ISBN 0-679-72417-6

9

Barbara Brown Wilson. Public Interest Design Practice Guidebook. Chapter 2: What Social Justice Movements Can Teach us about Public Interest Design

10

Dana Cuff, Community Property: Enter the Architect, or Politics of Form

11

SEED Mission and Principles: https://seednetwork.org/about/mission/

12

Kristin Feireiss, Brad Pitt. Architecture in Times of Need. Chapter: Design in Times of Need, pp. 116 – 120

13

Proactive Practices interviews and case studies: http://proactivepractices.org/case-studies/mass-design-group/

14

Proactive Practices interviews and case studies: http://proactivepractices.org/case-studies/gensler-baltimore/ P a g e 83 | 84

15

Proactive Practices interviews and case studies: http://proactivepractices.org/case-studies/inscape-publico/

16

Bob Berkebile. Interview by Jeremy Knoll on October 20, 2016.

17

Sandra Hayes. Bancroft School Apartments SEED Doc. https://designcorps.org/seedocs/

18

Lisa M. Abendroth, Bryan Bell. Public Interest Design Practice Guidebook. Chapter 9: The SEED Evaluator and SEED Certification.

19

Paul Goldberger. Up from Zero. Chapter 7: Boldness and Vision – the Public Demands More, p108

20

Paul Goldberger. Up from Zero. Chapter 7: Boldness and Vision – the Public Demands More,

21

BNIM. Greensburg Masterplan Report

22

Bob Berkebile. Interview by Jeremy Knoll on October 20, 2016.

23

Dana Cuff, Community Property: Enter the Architect, or Politics of Form

24

Bob Berkebile. Bancroft School Apartments SEED Doc. https://designcorps.org/seedocs/

25

Blue Ocean is a market strategy which involves defining new markets or industry boundaries where there is a great need but no competition to fulfill that need. https://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/8-key-points-of-blue-ocean-strategy/

26

Sam De Jong. Bancroft School Apartments SEED Doc. https://designcorps.org/seedocs/

27

SEED Mission and Principles: https://seednetwork.org/about/mission/