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Christopher Kelley Leadership Development Program

Session 04: Community Engagement

Date: June 14th, 2024

Location: HGA Architects, 84 W Santa Clara Street, San Jose, CA 95113

Led by: Alexandria Evans, AIA, and Foram Mistry, Assoc. AIA

2024 Executive Committee: Chair: Madhubala Ayyamperumal, Assoc. AIA

Graphics Advisor: Sreedevi Krishnan, Assoc. AIA

Session Sponsors: HGA Architects, CAW Architects

Overview

With session 04, AIA Silicon Valley’s CKLDP scholars made it through half of the one-year-long program. Scholars with huge enthusiasm soaked in a half-day of community engagement content via powerful presentations, workshops, and panel discussions. Speakers and panelists shared different ways by which design professionals can engage with local communities and highlighted the importance of active participation and how this helps in building better communities.

Session 1: Presentation on Affordable Housing by Architects FORA

Advocating for a Community-Led Design Process

Sarah Vaccaro, AIA, LEED AP

Kate Conley, AIA, LEED AP, NOMA

Nicole Little, Assoc AIA, LEED GA

Yoshira Jimenz, Assoc AIA, NCARB

The session started with a presentation by Architects FORA on the community engagement process involved in their firm’s Affordable Housing projects. This session focused on the ground work involved in engaging the community at the early design phase and implementing design strategies accordingly. This session was followed by a hands-on activity in the form of a workshop in small groups that brainstormed ideas and presented their findings regarding better community engagement practices.

Through this session, Scholars gained valuable knowledge in key areas, such as understanding community needs better and translating them into design ideas and incorporating them into the design process.

Local Political Landscape: The interviews conducted revealed historical context related to affordable senior housing in Palo Alto and a city-wide referendum which was ultimately voted down. Some of the same influential figures from that time remained active in local politics. Armed with this understanding, FORA was better equipped to ask relevant questions and develop clear messaging during subsequent community workshops. Understanding the local political landscape is key to architects involved in the community engagement process. This also includes being aware of the context and history so we, as architects, can ask the right questions.

Building Empathy: Fora emphasized during workshops that housing isn’t an abstract concept—it directly impacts real people, sometimes even our neighbors. FORA engaged in exercises to identify stakeholders and address misconceptions. When designing for specific groups of people, fostering empathy and actively listening to the community results in bringing diverse perspectives to the drawing board.

Session 2: Workshop Community Engagement by HMC Architects

Interactive role-play activities in community engagement

Shweta Joshi, AIA, LEED AP BD+C

John Park, Design Leader

John Park and Shweta Joshi presented their community engagement and design ideas and valuable insights from their recent high school project in Hollister, CA. Some of our key takeaways being:

Community-Centric Approach: The project in Hollister demonstrated a commitment to community-centric design. Rather than imposing top-down solutions, the team actively engaged with residents, stakeholders, and experts through virtual workshops, surveys, and one-on-one meetings to gather diverse perspectives. This approach ensured that the resulting master plan and design truly served the needs of the people who live and work in the city.

Empowering Community Ideas: Inspired by Dale Carnegie’s wisdom, “All streams flow to the sea because it’s lower than they are,” the team positioned itself below the community. By doing so, they empowered community ideas to shape their architectural vision.

Additionally, scholars learned about various activities through which better community engagement practices are effective in today’s world starting from workshops, surveys, interviews to creating an inclusive presentation in native language for bilingual communities.

Session 3: Panel Discussion with Architects

Active community roles outside the design studio

Panelists:

Liz Gibbons, AIA, LEED AP

Daniel Perez, AIA, NMA, LEED AP

Mousam Adcock, AIA, LEED AP

Matthew Quevedo, Deputy Chief of Staff (of Mayor Matt Mahan)

The panel consisted of architects, a principal, political strategist, a mayor and a review board member. The inspiring discussion offered different viewpoints on active community engagement. The discussion offered the scholars an unique perspective, that is different from their day-to-day studio tasks and emphasized on active involvement in local communities. The panelists also discussed various ways for the architects to get involved with the community at all levels starting from HOA meetings to Architectural Review boards. The panel also includes an overview of the many entities that exist at the local level as well as what power some have, and how laws that impact the built environment are implanted and made. The panel ended with a note: “If you do not get involved, someone else will” emphasizing on the need for architects’ engagement in our communities is essential.