by: Enrique Andrés Bejarano, AIA
On November 8, 2024, the AIANY Civic Leadership Program hosted the final development session of its 2024 program, led by Enrique Andrés Bejarano, AIA, Architect and Specifications Specialist at Gensler, and Alice Allan, AIA, Associate at CannonDesign. The seminar, “From Global to Personal: Defining, Accessing, and Measuring the Impact of Good Design Across Scales,” was prompted by the AIA Statement of Values which asserts that “access to good design is a fundamental right.” Well, what is “good” design? What is a right?
It becomes increasingly difficult to define success without examining the various interwoven scales that design impacts—Global, Urban, Building, and Personal. With an understanding that there would always be overlaps, we sought experts who could speak to and present a focused inquiry into each of the scales below:
The Global Scale
Jacob Plotkin, Gensler Research Institute: Leveraging Research to Drive Good Design
With a background in environmental policy, Plotkin presented two major research projects he worked on recently with Gensler: Global Climate Action Survey 2024 and Designing for Racial Justice. These highlighted the importance of data and demonstrated means and methods of organizing and applying it to achieve better outcomes for all.
The Urban Scale
Jenna Miller, NYC Public Design Commission and RUEd’ARCH: Good Public Design in Policy and Practice
Understanding the history of the NYC Public Design Commission is important to appreciate the complicated nature of how projects reflect and serve the city. The question of what is good design comes up often in reviewing public projects, including the importance of meaningful community engagement. Since good design is subjective consideration, the process of involving locals to really understand their desires and concerns can help designers begin to create successful and well-loved interventions.
The Building Scale
Lisa Carey Moore, Living Futures: Living Future Certifications as Frameworks for Action and Impact
Moore emphasized the need to make regenerative design the standard, a topic that came up again in the panel discussion. The Living Building Challenge, a holistic and comprehensive certification emphasizes a building’s success by creating holistic spaces related to place, water use, energy, health and happiness, safe materials, equity, and aesthetics; highlighting Good Design should encapsulate the sourcing of ethical and healthy materials, equity in design practice, accessibility, and environmental factors.
The Personal Scale
Melanie Koch, The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI): Health in the Built Environment & the Impact of Good Design
Spanning physical, behavioral, and lifestyle health, Koch stressed the importance of creating design strategies which prioritize the health of occupants. Noting that we spend most of our time indoors, Koch highlighted the role WELL Certifications can play in creating healthy spaces. Koch began to tie together the importance of all the scales of “good” design working together, underscoring that healthy humans and a healthy planet often go hand in hand.
Panel Takeaways and Conclusions
The second half of the seminar was a panel discussion between the cohort, advisors, and guests, highlighting the meaningful data, certifications, frameworks, and forms of community engagement that exist. It prompted questions about how we can propose and emphasize the importance of these tools to clients or people outside the profession. Because projects have multiple entry points for stakeholders, each with their own goals and agendas, it is important to know how to speak their language and lead with what matters to them while still advocating for the things that will improve our planet, our communities, our spaces, and our individual wellbeing. As designers and practitioners, the cohort and panelists know that they have a responsibility to help the process of design do good.
In conclusion, is it even possible to define “good” design? Not really. But by understanding the existing tools and frameworks, professionals can better integrate them into the design process so that everyone might have access to better design.
Special thanks to our speakers and our CLP mentor Alexis Clarke.