Equity in the Built Environment: Improving Racial Equity through Greener Design

Understand how architects across the U.S. are working to improve the environmental and social sustainability of communities by protecting neighborhoods from gentrification, installing parks and public art exhibits in urban centers, and creating state-of-the-art libraries in financially challenged neighborhoods. Antoine Bryant, Assoc. AIA, project manager and business development at the Houston office of Moody Nolan; Gabrielle Bullock, FAIA, a principal and the director of global diversity at Perkins&Will in Los Angeles; and Rico Quirindongo, AIA, formerly a principal at DLR Group, now Deputy Director for City of Seattle Office of Planning and Community Development; discuss their work in these cities. Projects discussed include Midtown Public Square in Seattle; Destination Crenshaw in Los Angeles; and the Library Learning Center in Houston.

Improving Racial Equity Through Greener Design is based on the American Institute of Architects’ Blueprint for Better campaign to transform the day-to-day practice of architecture to achieve a zero-carbon, resilient, healthy, just, and equitable built environment.

This program continues the National Building Museum’s Equity in the Built Environment series of conversations that focus on how buildings, landscapes, interiors, and streets can be the cause of—and, more important, the cure for—social and racial disparities.