By Dorothy Qian (M.R.P./M.L.A. ’22)
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I have decided to work remotely this summer for SHADE Institute, based in Honolulu, Hawaii. Their mission is to provide community-based planning and design to underserved communities and allying non-profit organizations through fellowship training and professional mentorship. SHADE is Hawaii’s first public-interest design (PID) organization. Public interest design is a growing sector of non-profit and pro-bono practice in the planning and architecture fields. This model stems back to the community design movement in 1968 when American civil rights leader, Whitney Young, issued a challenge to his audience at the American Institute of Architects:
“…you are not a profession that has distinguished yourself by your social and civic contributions to the cause of civil rights, and I am sure this does not come to you as any shock. You are most distinguished by your thunderous silence and your complete irrelevance.”
The rise of Community Design Centers (CDC) was a response to this challenge. Design/build programs were also initiated in architecture education. PID became a movement to encourage socially responsible architecture and design. Nowadays, PID organizations such as SHADE offer training and service-learning programs for students and graduates.
I came to SHADE aspiring to immerse myself in their community engagement process. I wanted to learn how they build relationships with representatives of different community groups and other sectors, whether that is public, private, or non-profit. I tried to observe the public design workshops and be part of that process and come to my own assessment of how they go about receiving public input and translating that into formalized plans and design. The director of SHADE, Dean Sakamoto, has been flexible in allowing me to work remotely this summer, given the global circumstances. I hope to return next summer to get the immersive in-person interaction and opportunity. It is demonstrative of SHADE’s intent to build long-lasting relationships with a variety of stakeholders as well as with the Institute’s fellows.
SHADE leaders have helped me move closer to a direction for my exit project in the MRP program, which will deal with the assessment of projects that deal with land use legislation on a national and local level in Hawaii. My mentor is Grace Zheng, a practitioner with PBR, a design firm based in Honolulu, who also is an alumna of the dual degree program in regional planning and landscape architecture at Cornell. Through her mentorship, I was able to compile a summer reading list to better understand ethical public design practices:
Public Interest Design Practice Guidebook (2016) by Lisa M. Abendroth and Bryan Bell
Urban Enclaves (1996) by Mark Abrahamson
The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History (1995) by Dolores Hayden