Chapter: Design Representation: Engaging Community Health Design

Book: All-Inclusive Engagement in Architecture: Towards the Future of Social Change

Credit: Editors: Farhana Ferdous, Bryan Bell

Dotte Agency: A Participatory Design Model for Community Health

As community activists resist racial injustice, food insecurity, and infrastructural delinquency, many groups are attempting to articulate the voice of the citizen. It is within this landscape that architects have historically struggled to find common ground to afford democratic access for citizens to engage in discussions about the future of their city. Based upon surrogate models of other professions, there has emerged a proactive movement towards Social Impact Design. Like many urban core areas, our community faces a health epidemic compounded by poverty. In response to requests for collaboration, and through cross-disciplinary academic partnerships in both public health and social welfare, we have begun to leverage design advocacy to improve health outcomes. This has evolved into an alternative model of practice that advances public design through interdisciplinary, adaptive and incremental spatial agency. It is a sustainable practice that fosters conversations and supports events originating from within the community. Our approach seeks to scaffold an infrastructure of public health through methods of participatory design and advocacy. Through new forms of design intelligence and collaborative design tools, our critical spatial practice demonstrates new ways for how architectural design can be relevant to society.

Credit: Shannon Criss, Matt Kleinmann

Video: Project Pipeline KC

Youth architecture workshop on health equity issues

Credit: Bryan C. Lee Jr., NOMA, Project Pipeline, Groundwork NRG, NBC CDC, Dotte Agency

Video: Come Walk With Us Sidewalk Audits

Community-led neighborhood sidewalk audit in disinvested area

Credit: Groundwork NRG, Community Health Council of Wyandotte County, and Dotte Agency

Dotte Mobile Grocer

Community-owned mobile grocer store