News
Storefront for Community Design
Storefront Launches Roadmap for 3-year Plan

In May 2022, Storefront for Community Design announced a bold, new vision and a three-year strategic plan. We will firmly focus on transforming our low-cost design and planning assistance programs and expanding our design education programs to inspire community-driven design in the built environment.

This is a living, breathing plan that we will continue revisiting over the months and years ahead. Since kickstarting our plan in July, we've been building an intentional roadmap that prioritizes actions and creates measurable goals. We are excited to share it and begin collaborating with you as we continue to realize our vision.

Storefront Launches Roadmap for 3-year Plan
Community Design Archive, News, Impact Stories
Storefront for Community Design
Storefront Celebrates 10th Anniversary

Each year, Valentine’s Day reminds us to purposefully demonstrate love, care, and support for our families, friends, and communities. This year’s holiday also marks Storefront for Community Design’s 10th anniversary and we want to shout a huge THANK YOU for your support in making our first ten years a success.

Since the beginning, we set out to make design accessible to all “for the love of our city.” Through partnerships and community collaborations, we continue to discover new ways of seeking Richmond's physical and social transformation through design and community voice. After an incredible ten years, we remain humble, yet excited for the possibilities that lie ahead for our organization, partners, and neighbors.

Our Board of Directors, staff, and partners are excited to celebrate this milestone anniversary throughout the year, so stay tuned for ways to get involved. To kickstart our celebration, here’s a few ways you can show your support today.

  • Donate to Storefront to support our next ten years

  • Volunteer as a Session Designer

  • Share our story with your network

Whether you’ve been with Storefront from the beginning or just a short time, we wanted to celebrate our anniversary with a look back over the last ten years. Enjoy the memories and accomplishments of our community and we look forward to making many more with you in the coming years. Now, it’s time to celebrate!

Storefront Celebrates 10th Anniversary
News
Storefront for Community Design
Storefront Welcomes New Executive Director and ...

Storefront for Community Design is excited to announce the selection of Shawn Balon as its new Executive Director.

Shawn brings a wealth of experience in design, non-profit, and educational environments with expanded knowledge of organizational management and strategic planning. He has the strategic vision necessary to elevate Storefront for Community Design and its programs in the years to come and will bring a creative, innovative, and collaborative approach when working with staff, board members, donors, partners, volunteers, and the community-at-large.

“I appreciate the board’s confidence in me, and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to lead such a great organization. It will take innovative and purposeful solutions to create a path for Storefront for Community Design to continue addressing the challenges in our communities, and I look forward to advancing my efforts to focus on the importance of participatory design to honor differences, challenge injustices, and create vibrant neighborhoods,” said Balon.

News, Programs & Projects
Storefront for Community Design
Richmond Magazine: Designs Within Reach

We recently got to share a few projects at mOb studio + Storefront for Community Design with Richmond Magazine and how it all got started. Read the full interview by Taylor Peterson published on Feb 7, 2020.

“Design provides a vision rather than a … volatile position.” —Camden Whitehead, co-founder, Mob Studio

Richmond Magazine: Designs Within Reach

Storefront Launches New Low-cost Program Menu

With a goal to increase access to programming, we are excited to launch a new menu for our low-cost design and planning assistance programs! Storefront's program menu provides the opportunity for you to apply based on your needs and the size of your project or idea. Each low-cost program offers three size sessions or actions (small, medium, or large) that provide consultation and connects you to volunteers and design resources.

About Low-cost Design and Assistance

Storefront’s low-cost design and planning assistance program includes our Design Session Studio and Community Engagement Studio. Since 2011, Storefront has completed over 325 design sessions and 25 community engagement initiatives. This program has provided hundreds of Richmonders design and planning assistance at a low-cost that is subsidized by our generous supporters.

The need for low-cost design and planning assistance through our Design Session Studio and Community Engagement Studio has been evident and as community requests evolve, we will continue to adapt to the changing times to assist with varying community-initiated projects. Our program and project focus areas include Environmental and Food Justice, Health and Wellness, Community Organizing, Placemaking/Placekeeping, Economic Development, and Design/Planning Tools.

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Recapping the 2021 Golden Hammer Awards

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Recapping the 2021 Golden Hammer Awards

Storefront for Community Design and Historic Richmond hosted the 2021 Golden Hammer Awards on October 28 at Hardywood Brewery. As Richmond-area non-profits with interests in historic preservation and neighborhood revitalization, we were delighted to co-present the awards for the fifth year and recognize professionals working in neighborhood revitalization, blight reduction, and historic preservation in the Richmond region.

The Golden Hammer Awards were started in 2000 with a goal of honoring excellence in neighborhood revitalization projects throughout Greater Richmond. For over 20 years, we have celebrated our nominees and award winners in person but in 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic, we hosted a virtual announcement of the awards on our websites and through social media. It was great to be back in person this year to celebrate with so many friends, family, and colleagues!

This year, the collective work of our nominees reflected innovative solutions to address contemporary issues, marking progress towards a more vibrant and equitable Richmond. Thank you to all of our nominees, award attendees, and to our sponsors: Williams Mullen, Dunbar, SingleStone, Baskervill, and Thompson Consulting Engineers. We can't wait to see what you do next year!

Notes from the Field: November Program Highlights

Notes from the Field: November Program Highlights

Storefront for Community Design operates three main community-based studio programs: Youth Innovation, Design Session, and Community Engagement. Check out our latest highlights for each studio below. If you’re interested in getting involved, check out our summer volunteer opportunities.

Youth Innovation Studio

The Youth Innovation Studio provides project-based learning opportunities that engage youth and young adults in real-world problem solving while providing a safe space to build the capacity to create effective change in their lives and communities.


Fall Session
Tis the season to be thankful. Thank you to all of our generous donors for assisting us in reaching our September fundraising goal for our Youth Innovation Studio! Thanks to you, we were able to kickstart our programming this fall.

The City Builders design program launched in October with a focus on creating solutions for healthy food access in the city. We have begun our education and discovery phase to learn more about the challenges of the community.

In October, we welcomed Ebony Walden, Urban Planner, Consultant, and Creator of the Racial Equity Essay project. During her visit, the youth participants had the opportunity to learn about the history of urban planning in Richmond and completed a community planning analysis to identify the needs of the Highland Park community. Later this semester, they will be digging deeper into the challenges of food accessibility for residents in Richmond as we learned that five out of five residents surveyed did not have access to a grocery store within walking distance. Of the five residents interviewed, only one had access to a car.

06 | Designing an Innovation Center

[10 Years, 10 Stories of Impact series]

Once an auto body shop, now a youth innovation studio. In 2017, a storefront along a commercial boulevard in Highland Park was transformed into a space for young people to realize their potential, design their ideas, and connect with the community.

The Engagement & Design

After several years of xxx. The goal was to engage with community members about how they might envision the growth of their neighborhood, to describe the resources these organizations offered, and most importantly to eat, dance, and perform in the talent show. With a generous investment from Robins Foundation’s Community Innovation Grant, funding for the renovation of the Boaz & Ruth-owned building was made possible. Awarded in 2015, Storefront collaborated with community partners to create a new space that operates at the intersection of design education and community engagement.

05 | A Celebration of Community Design

[10 Years, 10 Stories of Impact series]

In 2014, Storefront staff members attended the Association for Community Design’s (ACD) national conference in Detroit. The semiannual ACD Conference seeks to share best practices of community design, build coalitions among practitioners, and facilitate exchanges between national practitioners and local organizations.

As staff met people from across the country involved in community design and learned about strategies other cities were using to engage with their communities, they knew they needed to bring this conference to Richmond. After submitting a proposal to host the 2015 conference, Storefront’s “Neighbors” theme was chosen! The theme sought to bring the focus back to that most basic unit of the community. While learning from other cities is important, the focus on neighbors reminded participants that it is critical to take into account the people of each unique community rather than simply replicate programs of others.

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Have You Ever Wondered How to Design an Edible Landscape?

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Have You Ever Wondered How to Design an Edible Landscape?

Have you ever wondered how to get started designing a garden or edible landscape? Yeah? You’re not the only one. Learn more and check out the resources available below to help you design an edible landscape!

In early August, Storefront for Community Design partnered with the City of Richmond’s Parks, Recreation, and Community Facilities (PRCF) Teen Workforce program to host a design workshop to create a food forest in the City’s Southside. The workshop would bring a variety of ideas from workforce participants who visited and worked in many gardens across the city. This was also a great opportunity to showcase Storefront’s mission to build capacity, engage the next generation of designers, and create resources for our community.

The design workshop took place over two days. Day one included a site visit to Broad Rock Sports Complex, the project location selected by PRCF. After the visit, teens and staff headed back to Storefront’s office on East Broad Street to learn more about the design process. Shawn Balon, Executive Director at Storefront who is also a landscape architect, assisted in leading the discussion highlighting the design process, built environment professions (architecture, landscape architecture, etc.), and different drawings created by professionals to visualize an idea - like a plan drawing.

04 | Recovery by Design

[10 Years, 10 Stories of Impact series]

It all began with a serendipitous ask for a gallery space to host an Annual Art of Recovery Art Show as part of National Recovery Month. The stars aligned when Laura Minnick, Coordinator of Consumer and Family Affairs at Richmond Behavioral Health Authority (RBHA), was attending a Board meeting where a colleague mentioned Storefront for Community Design as a potential location to hold the next art exhibit. RBHA reached out to Storefront and a partnership would soon blossom that not only included a one-time art exhibit, but an eight-week summer session for adults with lived experience of mental illness and/or substance use disorder.

Storefront collaborated with the faculty of mOb studio and RBHA to write two successive National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grants that would provide funding to plan, host, and facilitate multiple summer sessions. In March 2014, the journey of discovery and healing began for each of the 43 participants involved in the program.

Notes from the Field: August Program Highlights

Notes from the Field: August Program Highlights

Storefront for Community Design operates three main community-based studio programs: Youth Innovation, Design Session, and Community Engagement. Check out our latest highlights for each studio below. If you’re interested in getting involved, check out our summer volunteer opportunities.

Youth Innovation Studio

The Youth Innovation Studio provides project-based learning opportunities that engage youth and young adults in real-world problem solving while providing a safe space to build the capacity to create effective change in their lives and communities.


Summer Session
Thanks to our partnership with Partnership for the Future, Storefront had the opportunity to work with two youth interns this summer. Our interns were given the opportunity to select, participate, and complete a project from our implementation plan. We wanted to make sure that while leadership created the implementation plan, youth voices were heard and involved in the process. During this process, our youth interns engaged in conversations with the community, visited designers and their spaces, assisted in the remodeling of the 6PIC space, and helped to lead various parts of our volunteer days with Mending Walls.

Six Points Innovation Center Makeover and In-Kind Requests

This summer marked the 4th anniversary of Six Points Innovation Center (6PIC), a collaborative work space for non-profit organizations, youth, and community members. Storefront for Community Design opened 6PIC in June 2017, in collaboration with four other partner non-profit organizations, to provide a place to express creativity, help youth learn a multitude of skills, and, most of all, connect with community members.

To celebrate, 6PIC partners decided to begin rebuilding from the inside out. The partners worked on two projects that would provide a makeover to the space before resuming operations, space rentals, and programming in the fall of 2021. The first project was a collaboration with Storefront’s Design Session Studio to create a vision for the interior space. The second project included a collaboration with Mending Walls and HandsOn Greater Richmond to refresh and repaint the space.

We Need Your Help!
As we look to the fall semester, we are still in need of in-kind furniture donations. Check out the 6PIC Interior Space Design Session below for an itemized list of furniture and contact us if you have potential donations!

03 | mOb + Storefront = ❤️

[10 Years, 10 Stories of Impact series]

Some may say there’s a fluid access to design thinking (and dreaming) in academia that becomes increasingly difficult to tap into as we immerse ourselves in professional practice. At the same time, getting impactful hands-on experience can be a challenge to find in a structured curriculum.

Storefront for Community Design’s partnership with mOb studio through the Design Session Studio program fills this gap and offers students the opportunity to work on innovative projects with the community in the City of Richmond.

 

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