June 22-25, 2017                                                                                                                                           Dallas, Texas  

hosted by: buildingCommunity Workshop 

40TH ANNIVERSARY + 2017 ANNUAL CONFERENCE CommUNITY: Exchange. Explore. Envision.

 

Conference Tracks

Exchange: Sessions focused on the technical skills that are essential to practicing community-based design. From budgets, fundraising, and contracts to project delivery and design tools that are essential to practice.

Explore: Sessions showcased key examples of best practices in the Community Design field. Going beyond case studies and clearly explaining the lessons learned, each session will show how their work refined the model of practice for that individual or firm.

Envision: What will the next 40 years of the Community Design field look like? These sessions presented ambitious visions of the future for community-based design practice, the role of ACD and its members in that vision, and/or methodologies to create and achieve a future vision.

 

Preconference: Racial Justice by Design

As community designers, we are dedicated towards improving the everyday experience and built environment for under-resourced communities. Often times, our projects aim to move towards greater economic development, civic participation and political representation, increasing affordable housing stock and the list of outcomes go on and on. Many of these social issues are the result of racism and racial inequality.

As community designers, can we redefine the practice of Community Design to impact more upstream on the spectrum of oppressive systems to think about how we can combat racism on a systemic level, in addition to the issues they produce on the ground?

In a day-long conversation, we set out to spark critical and honest conversation around the possibilities and challenges of this work, while create the beginnings of a shared analysis to explicitly think about the integration of racial justice practice into the Community Design practice.

 

Design for Equity

Design for Equity is a multi-course intentional meal to address racial equity in community design, and each of our own individual experiences with issues of race in our work. Over the course of the meal through participation, discussion and sharing, we will get to know each other, discuss our own personal experiences with issues of race in our community design careers, and commit to ways we can return as more active agents of greater racial equity.

Design for Equity is presented by Enterprise Community Partners in partnership with Café Momentum and the Association for Community Design. Enterprise is a proven and powerful nonprofit that improves communities and people’s lives by making well-designed homes affordable. We bring together nationwide know-how, partners, policy leadership and investment to multiply the impact of local affordable housing development. Enterprise runs the Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship, the premier career path for social impact architecture. Applications for rewarding 3-year fellowships in community development for architects and landscape architects are now open. Learn more at www.enterprisecommunity.org/rose.  

Café Momentum is a Dallas-based restaurant and culinary training facility that transforms young people’s lives by providing a positive environment in which at-risk youth who have spent time in juvenile facilities receive intensive culinary, job and life-skill training, as well as continued mentorship and support, enabling them to achieve their full potential.

 

Local conference partners:

AIA Austin
APA North Texas Chapter
SMU Design Council