We value collaboration at a neighborhood level.

Our Neighborhood Strategy approach starts with listening to build a collective story. Alongside Black-led groups, we make time to pivot and co-design Pronunciation: co•de•​sign To design in a way that actively and equally involves all participants in the process at every step of the way.

Brownsville Heritage House Design Strategy

In collaboration with the Brownsville Heritage House, we co-created a design strategy to expand public engagement with the 40-year-old organization and its treasured space.

Techniques we used: Site Documentation, Precedent Research, Participatory Design, Community Visioning, Design Strategy

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Learn / Listen / Activate: We integrated storytelling and dreaming with BHH's communities at both virtual and in-person 40th-anniversary celebrations to focus the strategy.
Reflect / Co-Develop: We identified and consulted their target audiences in co-design sessions to draft the final social and spatial strategies.
Co-Create/Link: We celebrated the strategy and activated additional community partnerships to prototype the recommendations from the strategy that included a community archive and exhibition.
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Key Partners

Medgar Evers College Preparatory, My Brothers Keeper, WorkUrban, New York Women’s Foundation – Brooklyn Economic Justice Project, The Kresge Foundation, Gensler Mailchimp, Power in the Pen, Brooklyn Public Library, Isidor Studio, and many other friends of BHH.

Red Hook Initiative / Walcott Street Farm

We partnered with the Red Hook Initiative to reimagine the farm as a place that genuinely served their wants and desires and to be a cultural hub for the community. Watch how we co-created a space where people can work together, collectively grow, and make something beautiful.

Techniques we used: Site Documentation, Precedent Research, Participatory Design, Community Visioning, Conceptual Design

Making the Farm

Watch how we co-created a space where people can work together, collectively grow, and make something beautiful.

Learn / Listen / Activate: The 28-person co-design team from BlackSpace and farm community groups, shared their stories and perspectives to create four top values representing the most important issues and aspirations for Wolcott Street Farm: a green oasis, culture, safety and welcome, and unity.
Reflect / Co-Develop: We workshopped site ideas to transform the values into the final landscape and social design next steps for the Farm. The approach features a semi-circle pattern that addresses functional accessibility and intimacy of gathering.
Co-Create/Link: The conceptual design approach embodied our principle to “create circles, not lines” into a reimagined Wolcott Street Farm, The RHI community built out the designs alongside youth and volunteers!
Resources
This document offers clarified community values, spatial layout, and post-pandemic program recommendations that center the well-being of Black and marginalized groups in Red Hook.
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This document offers clarified community values, spatial layout, and post-pandemic program recommendations that center the well-being of Black and marginalized groups in Red Hook. Read more
Key Partners

Red Hook Initiative, Isidor Studio, JIMA Studio, The Kresge Foundation, The Laundromat Project, Mailchimp, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, Soul Spot Catering, Soul of the South Cooking, and YFW Productions, and many other friends!

G {Code} House

The G{Code} community had a vision for a space that would provide “co-living, co-learning, and co-working spaces for women and non-binary people of color ages 18 to 25 to unlock their potential and break into the tech industry as disruptive change makers.”

Techniques we used: Precedent Research, Participatory Design, Community Visioning, Design Research

Learn / Listen / Activate: The BlackSpace Manifesto Design Charette helped the participants of the G{Code}House create a vision for a thriving home by engaging their personal stories and sentimental artifacts.
Reflect / Co-Develop: Workshop participants used the BlackSpace Manifesto principles and their sentimental artifacts to develop a list of design features of a G{Code} affirmative space. Key types of spaces identified were play, care, family, and liberation.
Co-Create/Link: The final recommendations we shared with participants and Sasaki Architects to transform the design aspirations from just a computer lab into an affirmative space rooted in a collective vision of spatial desires of young women and non-binary people of color.
Key Partners

Arup Architects, Sasaki Architects

BlackSpaces: Brownsville

We spent a year with community members learning about local Black history and culture. Together we developed relationships, documented neighborhood memories and heritage assets, identified heritage values, and created spaces for existing local cultural producers and conservationists.

Learn / Listen / Activate: We attended existing cultural events to meet and converse with residents on their memories and relationships to Brownsville.
Reflect/ Co-Develop: We brought together creatives who create culture at the neighborhood level to strengthen connections and imagine how we might jointly amplify local Black history and culture.
Co-Create/Link: Together, we collaborated on multiple heritage and storytelling events, created a GIS map of 62 local Black cultural assets, and built longstanding partnerships with heritage groups.
Resources
This document records the process and provides references and resources for Brownsville (and similarly situated communities) residents that honors and develops their neighborhood heritage conservation initiatives.
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This document records the process and provides references and resources for Brownsville (and similarly situated communities) residents that honors and develops their neighborhood heritage conservation initiatives. Read more

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