Storefront for Community Design inspires equitable community-driven design through our innovative education programs including low-cost design and planning assistance and design workshops.
You’re invited to DesignRVA, our annual community day!
DesignRVA introduces youth ages 8-14 to the design of our region and shows how they can be a part of the planning, creation, and change of the places where we all live, learn, work, and play. Check out the write up in RIC Today!
When: Saturday June 8, 2024 10am–2pm
Where: Seven Hills School 1311 Overbrook Rd, Richmond, VA 23220
Who: Youth, families, community members
Design Session | Design and Planning Assistance
We provide community members with affordable design and planning assistance at an approachable level through one-on-one advice, conceptual sketches, and plans of action from volunteer professionals. Learn more about Design Session.
fonticello gathering space
We recently wrapped up a design for an outdoor space at Fonticello Food Forest in Southside based on community feedback! This space will accommodate free programming around healing from gun violence hosted by @fonticellofoodforest. Thank you to our lead volunteer architects Miriam and John for facilitating and designing!
The space was designed to accommodate small workshops with storage benches that hold shade sails when not in use as well as bigger groups as a platform. The chosen site is accessible in several ways and takes advantage of existing trees as a potential for a public art opportunity. The poor drainage at the chosen site is addressed by stormwater mitigation strategies like a french drain and rain garden. Fonticello is working to build this vision! Want to help? Email fonticellofoodforest@gmail.com.
MLK Jr. middle school Ubuntu Garden
For nearly a year, we've been working with two volunteer landscape architects, Lizzy and Robbie, in partnership with Kinfolk Community RVA to help illustrate the plan for an inclusive green space at MLK Jr. Middle School in the East End. After multiple site visits, community and team reviews, we've created a conceptual plan that includes an educational and restorative garden, amphitheater, outdoor kitchen, stormwater management and edible orchard!
A student team at mOb studio, also worked in tandem with Kinfolk Community to envision a site plan for a community gathering and storytelling space, receving mentorship from Lizzy and Robbie along the way.
Design Workshops | City Builders
We convene project-based learning opportunities focusing 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.
City Builders spring Semester
This spring we partnered with Peter Paul Development Center, Martin Luther King Jr Middle school, Fit4Kids, and Kinfolk Community to offer design workshops to East End and Northside youth.
design workshops
We used the design process to explore how our environments affect our health and wellness through charrettes, discussions, and model making. Specifically, youth gravitated to third spaces outside of school and home like parks and community centers and how they can be more sustainable.
Our high school design intern, Nate, helped facilitate class by holding a presentation and activity about designing spaces through a lens of climate resiliency and factors like temperature regulation, decreased pollutants, and selective plantings. The students completed their bio-architecture models and created a tree house, a wedding venue, and a house with a rooftop garden.
Thank you to the Green Workforce Crew at GroundworkRVA for their implementation of the African-centered labyrinth at MLK. We began our final class with a walk through the labryinth and ended with sketches of plants in the raised beds to test out this outdoor space and it’s restorative purpose.
Design mentor
We are excited to welcome back former City Builder and previous Design Session volunteer, Danielle Freeman Jefferson as a Lead Design Mentor. In her role she leverages her expertise to teach urban agriculture and climate resilience using the design process.
Danielle is a landscape architecture graduate who is working with our current City Builders in Gilpin and Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in the focus areas of placekeeping, environmental and food justice and health and wellness. Danielle’s work intertwines stewardship and education, advocating for eco-conscious practices and cultivating spaces for communal gathering.
This work is funded (in part) by a grant from Richmond Memorial Health Foundation(RMHF). RMHF is committed to its mission of fostering an equitable and healthy Richmond region. This support allows Storefront to continue to foster the next generation of designers.
Special thanks to the Action Alliance staff Raelyn, Youth Resilience Manager and Dawn, Youth Justice Coordinator for leading discussions around violence, health equity and social determinants of health this spring for our youth.
Meet the staff!
We’re a small but mighty team of two and have immense gratitude to all our stellar volunteers, partners, Advisory Council and Board that help support this work!
Kai directs the City Builders program, using a multifaceted approach to develop Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) skills in Richmond's youth through the design process. As a Richmond native, she is deeply involved in the community and passionate about educating and empowering youth and their families on how our environment impacts well-being.
Anya manages our Design Session program using participatory processes to steer initiatives that improve the places we live in. She’s called Richmond home for the majority of her life and believes in making the design process accessible to all in addressing complex societal issues.
P.S. Thanks @rvacommunityfridges for capturing our Richmond Curious talk a while back!
Resources and Opportunities
Sign Up and Volunteer at Project Pipeline’s Youth summer camp
Enjoy our bike lanes with Sportsbacker’s bike month calendar
Apply for a Youth Environmental Education Grant due June 27th
Addressing the Gap in Affordable Housing conversation
Diamond District design guidelines
When talking about equity in the built environment, it’s important to address the cycles of oppression that create inequity locally and globally, as we’re seeing in the ongoing crisis in Gaza and countless others. We’ve compiled some resources through this lens and believe all people deserve equitable, safe and enjoyable places to live:
“On Domicide” by Architectural League of NY (virtual event May 23rd 2pm EST)
Riwaq: Center for Architectural Conservation (archive of rural villages)
Golda Slept Here by Suad Amiry, historical accounts of everyday architecture in Palestine (book)
Our neighbor, Virginia Community Voice also shared a great list of educational resources in a recent newsletter along with these words:
“But it IS possible that watching what is happening in Palestine is waking more people up to the reality that the old way of being (based in extraction, violence, domination and greed) must end. That we can learn to live differently, in right relationship with each other and with the earth. That none of us are free until all of us are free.”