Storefront for Community Design inspires equitable community-driven design through our low-cost design and planning assistance programs and design education programs. Check out our June Notes from the Field to learn about recent updates from our programs.
Design Education: City Builders Design Workshop
We convene project-based learning opportunities that focus on real world issues in the built environment and encourage youth and young adults to discover and design solutions that create effective change in their lives and communities. Learn more about City Builders Design Workshop.
Spring Session: A Health Messaging Campaign
This spring, the City Builders Design Workshop focused on how the built environment affects the health of a community. Students living in the City of Richmond ages 13-18 explored the foundation of a healthy city and discovered how social determinants of health play an important role. According to the World Health Organization, social determinants of health include factors like socioeconomic status, education, neighborhood and physical environment, employment, and social support networks, as well as access to health care.
COVID-19 has impacted our built environment and forced us to rethink how we use spaces. City Builders Design students, in partnership with the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts, a graphic design mentor, VCU design students, and professional designers, created unique posters to communicate health messaging in their own neighborhood. A city is only as healthy as the people that live, learn, work and play in it!
The students unveiled their work in a community poster show in mid-May. The posters are on display at Six Points Innovation Center (6PIC) until the end of June, so stop by and check them out!
image: City Builders designing their posters
Registration is open for our City Builders Summer Workshop!
This summer, Storefront is hosting a weeklong City Builders Design Workshop to explore a graphic novel that follows the neighborhood adventures of teens in a city. Participants will take what they learn and collaborate with design professionals to brainstorm and design solutions in Richmond’s Jackson Ward neighborhood.
We are seeking youth and young adults ages 13 -18 in and around the Jackson Ward neighborhood who are inspired by real world projects that make positive change in their neighborhoods. The workshop will take place on Monday, August 1 to Friday, August 5. Lunch will be served and each participant will receive a stipend for participating in the program. Learn more and register by July 18.
Join our weeklong summer City Builders Design Workshop taking place August 1-5.
Low-cost Design and Planning Assistance:
Design Session
We provide community members design and planning assistance at an intimate, approachable level including one-on-one advice, conceptual sketches, and plans of action from volunteer design and planning professionals. Learn more about Design Session.
Health Messaging Posters
In partnership with the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts, Storefront for Community Design collaborated with VCUarts’ mOb studio to develop a COVID-19 and public health outreach campaign. Through the format of large scale hand-made posters, the student team focused on impactful visual communication that captures attention and connects audiences to up-to-date resources via QR codes. The posters are currently up at 6PIC with the City Builders’ posters. In addition, they are up at Boaz and Ruth (on the blue wall adjacent to 3044 Meadowbridge Rd). Stop by and check them out! Both sites are outdoor and accessible to the public.
image: mOb team wheatpasting posters at Boaz and Ruth
Community Design Space
As part of a Design Session request, Storefront collaborated with mOb studio to reconsider the needs of both groups in the existing space and create a conceptual spatial design with a larger area for staff, intentional community design workshops, shared gallery and pin-up spaces and upgrades to kitchen and technology. The team engaged past and current users through a public focus group and tackled the many facets of this unique space!
image: mOb studio + Storefront staff reviewing a proposed interior design concept
Resources:
Connecting Ukraine-US Design Professionals: A team of volunteer architects has created a pathway for US-based firms to offer remote, freelance work to Ukrainian designers (from Arch League of NY)
Extreme Heat, Climate Change, and Racial Equity: Watch the latest Racial Equity Essays event with members of Richmond’s environmental community discussing the urgency of local climate action and equitable approaches to realizing a sustainable Richmond!
Low-cost Design and Planning Assistance: Community Visioning
We provide community-based design and planning assistance that inspires community members to take action, leverage their creativity, and realize a shared vision that strengthens our neighborhoods. Learn about Community Visioning.
Highland Grove Guide Launches
In fall 2021, Storefront kicked off a collaboration with Better Housing Coalition (BHC) to lead a community visioning and engagement process to receive feedback and ideas from residents, business owners, and potential homebuyers regarding specific outdoor elements and architectural elements for the Highland Grove Community Unit Plan.
This spring, Storefront completed the community engagement and recommendations guide for BHC. The guide includes plans, actions, and recommendations resulting from the six-month long process of the project team working with the community to evaluate existing conditions, review the proposed community plan, and provide recommendations for the neighborhood.
The guide provides a strong foundation for next steps and decision-making, but this document is only the starting point for BHC and community partners’ work moving forward. As neighborhood improvements are phased in and residents begin to move into Highland Grove, new circumstances may reshape the plan and outdoor elements. Additional community engagement is critical throughout the lifespan of the construction project to ensure future Highland Grove residents and adjacent neighbors’ voices are heard prior to final selection of outdoor elements
image: Highland Grove Community Engagement and Recommendations Guide
Jackson Ward Community Plan Kicks Off
In November, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a $450,000 planning grand award to the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority (RRHA). This community award is designed to stimulate affordable housing and economic development in the neighborhoods of Gilpin Court and the entire Jackson Ward community. Since November the planning team, including RRHA, the City of Richmond, Richmond City Health District, Looney Ricks Kiss (LRK), and Storefront for Community Design, have been busy strategizing a robust action plan for community engagement and plan development.
This May, the Jackson Ward Community Plan planning team held two community meetings for the Jackson Ward Community Plan to bring Gilpin Court and Jackson Ward residents, planning experts, elected officials, and community members together to reach an informed, shared vision for the future of the neighborhood. The Community Plan provides an exciting opportunity to ensure that the many projects currently being implemented or planned in the Jackson Ward neighborhood (i.e. Reconnect Jackson Ward, 1st Street Bridge renovation, Belvedere Exchange improvement, etc.) are considered and included in the neighborhood plan.
image: Community Engagement/Visioning schedule for Jackson Ward Community Plan: May 2022 to November 2023
Storefront has been contracted to assist the planning team with community visioning and engagement throughout the project lifecycle. Upon submission to HUD at the end of 2023, the Community Plan will be a living document that will be organized and designed to act as a guide for community empowerment and a road map for continued planning and action. We are excited to be part of the planning team and look forward to collaborating with Richmond residents over the next 18 months.
Check out the Jackson Ward Community Plan webpage to learn more about upcoming meetings and to review past meeting materials.