Perspectives from Professionals
Facilitated by Allan Co and Featuring Durell Coleman, Christine Gaspar, Adam Rosa, and Jae Shin
Friday, October 20
10:30 AM - 11:40 AM
The community design and development field continues to grow as more recognize the need for a just built environment. Yet pathways through a nebulous field and a challenging career remain uncharted and hard to see. Traditional career trajectories through the design industry are well known - how we can operate outside of those lines, survive and thrive through a career that is considered an “alternative” form of practice, is less clear. This panel convenes practitioners in the broad field of community design and development, seeking an inclusive, just and equitable built environment. Ground-truthed in decades of experience, panelists will discuss the opportunities and challenges of working in the field for 10 to 15 or more years.
Attendees will hear an honest, peer-to-peer discussion about crafting various careers, personal and professional decision points and impacts, what continues to drive and concern panelists, and how they continue to grow and innovate in their work. Conversation will cover what it has been like to grind through the landscape of community design, how it's changed since they’ve started practice, and specifically how the racial reckoning of the past few years has impacted our field. Having made it through early-career challenges, and having anchored their careers in this industry, we will reflect on what keeps us grounded and pushes us, and the work, forward. Looking beyond project and programs, the panel seeks to uncover the difficulties, rewards and real operational work that individuals have put in to move through their careers thus far.
Durell Coleman
Panelist
Durell Coleman is the founder of DC Design, a social impact design firm that uses the Design Thinking process to better define community needs, develop strategy, and design solutions to some of America’s most pressing social challenges. In his journey as a designer, Durell has collaborated with international non-profits, large tech companies, and small businesses to reduce mass incarceration, homelessness, economic inequality, Black infant mortality and more. He is a two-time alumnus of Stanford University and its famous Institute of Design (the Stanford d.school). He is an expert in multi-stakeholder, human-centered design; has been awarded the Jefferson Award for Public Service as a result of his work; and is one of the subjects of the PBS documentary: “Extreme by Design,” which is used as a design thinking teaching aid all over the world.
Christine Gaspar
Panelist
Christine Gaspar is a designer and planner with over 15 years of experience in community-engaged design practice. From 2009 to 2022, she was the Executive Director of the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), a New York-based nonprofit that partners with designers and community organizations to create visually-based educational tools that help demystify complex issues impacting their communities, from zoning law to immigrants’ rights. The projects are designed with and for advocacy organizations to help increase their capacity to mobilize their constituents on social justice issues that are important to them. During her time there, she led CUP from a small, local organization to a nationally-recognized leader in the community-engaged design field. Prior to CUP, she was Assistant Director of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio in Biloxi, Mississippi, where she provided architectural design and community planning services to low-income communities of color recovering from Hurricane Katrina. The work of CUP and GCCDS have been featured in art and design contexts such as the Cooper-Hewitt Museum's National Design Triennial and the Venice Biennale, and recognized with a Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Institutional Achievement, the Curry Stone Design Prize, and the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award.
Christine has taught courses on design, civic engagement, and community planning at SVA, Parsons the New School for Design, the Pratt Institute, Mississippi State University, and Boston Architectural College and has lectured about community-engaged design throughout the US and abroad. She is a founding member and Co-Chair of the Board of Design Futures Forum, and holds Masters in Architecture and in Urban Planning from MIT, and Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies from Brown University. Her work is driven by a belief that design can be a powerful tool, particularly when it’s used to support community-led visions for change.
Adam Rosa
Panelist
Adam Rosa, AICP is the Principal and Founder of COLLABO, a dynamic planning and urban design practice leading innovative and equitable neighborhood revitalization projects that generate positive results and improve the lives of local residents. Over his twenty-five year career, Adam has focused on making a difference through serving people and places in need, while ensuring a positive community impact through local empowerment and implementation. He has had the opportunity to work with diverse communities across the country to develop lasting strategies that capture the culture, spirit and potential of the local place. Through his work, Adam has developed a robust network of resources and partners that can be tapped to help overcome difficult challenges. Projects led by Adam have received numerous awards at the local, state and national levels. Adam has been honored as one of NextCity’s 40-under-40 Vanguard and has been inducted into Lambda Alpha International for his work in community planning and revitalization.
Jae Shin
Panelist
Jae Shin is a partner at HECTOR urban design, based in Newark, New Jersey. Informed by traditions of visionary architecture, popular education, and community organizing, HECTOR works on landscapes, buildings, development plans, and regulations with complex constituencies and competing priorities. HECTOR’s recent projects include a South Philly neighborhood park, a youth-centric development plan for a district of 37,000 people on Detroit’s west side, and a memorial for ecofeminist Sister Carol Johnston. The MacArthur Foundation describes HECTOR’s designs as “vivid and witty strategies to help residents exercise power within the public and private processes that shape our cities.”
Jae holds degrees in painting from Rhode Island School of Design and architecture from Princeton University. Her projects have received support from the Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship, Graham Foundation, MacDowell Colony and the National Endowment for the Art. She has taught graduate design studios at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Yale University School of Architecture, and currently at University of Pennsylvania School of Design Landscape Architecture Department.
Allan Co
Facilitator
Allan is an architect and community development professional with fifteen years of experience centered on delivering projects focusing on creating opportunity through social justice and racial equity. As a Senior Manager with Hester Street, Allan leverages inclusive community engagement strategies to drive local buy-in while meeting financial, programming, and design goals by layering financial tools with best practices and innovation in architecture and construction management. Prior to working at Hester Street, Allan served as Project Manager of Design and Construction at Breaking Ground, NYC’s eminent affordable housing developer where he managed the construction and delivery of over 1000 units of affordable housing throughout NYC. From 2016 to 2018, Allan was awarded an Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship and was named a 2020 Next City Vanguard. Allan holds architectural degrees from the University of Washington and Rice University.