COMMUNITY ENGAGED DESIGN
“Good design” can never be simply defined by aesthetics and ergonomics, especially when it comes to community-engaged design. As someone coming from the industrial design and anthropology disciplines, good design is also about seeking a deeper human understanding in design process and practice. This is about how we gauge our ways of working, not just our material outcomes.
Even when we talk about collaborative and participatory design, designers often hold a position of privilege in the relationship, being the ones to invite the non-designers to join the project, the workshop, the table, etc. The field and practice of social impact design has been challenged on these imbalances of power and influence for awhile now, and I am one of those challengers.
I have worked with numerous organizations and individuals in Detroit, and before that, Chicago, supporting efforts to build community spaces, events, and programs at varying scales and budgets. I have worked extensively with community leaders with social enterprise founders on projects of spacial equity, mobility, and urban agriculture.
Here are a few of those projects:
siobhan gregory 