EQxD Events

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Closing Session - Practice, Process and Paradigms for the J.E.D.I. Agenda

(For full description of the EQxD2020 SERIES - CLICK HERE)

Closing Session Workshop Description -

We will summarize the key concepts and lessons from the Series to translate into a draft of  strategic actions and sustained outcomes that are imperative in order to realize the JEDI Agenda within the civic realm. These practices and processes will aggregate into paradigm shifts evidenced in policy amendments, measured progress towards dismantling of systems of oppression, and a motivated workforce that understands and promotes effective change in the built environment. 



Learning Objectives:

    • Participants will be able to understand and implement solutions that mitigate  identified barriers, to effectively advocate for workplace, social, health, and environmental justice. 

    • Participants will understand practices and processed championed by equity and justice activists and be empowered to embrace their own identity and lived experiences to set or refresh professional career goals for meaningful activism.  and

    • Participants will investigate an intersectional concept of justice, articulating ways in which architectural practitioners can become change agents by designing holistically to address issues related to health, social mobility, and the environment.

    • Participants will self-assess their growth in understanding and awareness regarding each of the intersectional lenses identified and outline an action plan for effective engagement that leads to a paradigm shift in the practice of disciplines that contribute to the built environment.

AIA CEU CREDITS AVAILABLE



About the Speakers/Panelists

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Hop Hopkins, Director of Organizational Transformation for the Sierra Club.

Born in Dallas, Texas to working class parents, Hop sharpened his analysis organizing as an HIV/AIDS organizer and anti-globalization activist during the WTO uprising. Hop is also a certified Arborist, a Master Gardener and is a certified Community Emergency Response Team instructor. Alongside his wife of seventeen years, Hop homeschools their two daughters and maintains a food forest inhabited by their pet Australian shepherds, chickens, honey bees, fruit trees and multiple compost piles.



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Bryan C. Lee Jr.
Founder + Design Principal, Colloqate Design

Bryan is an Architect, educator, writer, and Design Justice Advocate. He is the founder/Design Principal of Colloqate Design a nonprofit multidisciplinary design practice, in New Orleans, Louisiana, dedicated to expanding community access to design and creating spaces of racial, social, and cultural equity. He has led two award-winning youth design programs nationwide and is the founding co-organizer of the DAP (Design As Protest) Collective. He was most recently noted as one of the 2018 Fast Company Most Creative People in Business, a USC Annenberg MacArthur Civic Media Fellow, and the youngest design firm to win the Architectural League’s Emerging Voices award in 2019.



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Gilbert C. Gee, Ph.D.

Gilbert C. Gee, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA. He received his bachelor degree in neuroscience from Oberlin College, his doctorate in Health Policy and Management from the Johns Hopkins University, and post-doctoral training in sociology from Indiana University. His research focuses on the social determinants of health inequities of racial, ethnic, and immigrant minority populations using a multi-level and life course perspective. A primary line of his research focuses on conceptualizing and measuring racial discrimination, and in understanding how discrimination may be related to illness. He has also published more broadly on the topics of stress, neighborhoods, immigration, environmental exposures, occupational health, and on Asian American populations.


Closing Session Panel Moderator

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Rosa T. Sheng, FAIA
Principal and Director of Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion | SmithGroup

Rosa T. Sheng, FAIA is Principal and Director of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion at SmithGroup. She is also the founder of Equity by Design [EQxD] and 2018 Past President of AIA San Francisco. Throughout the years, Rosa has led a variety of award-winning and internationally acclaimed projects, while launching a national movement for equitable practice, just and inclusive design outcomes in the built environment with a focus on higher education learning and space resources for student success. Rosa has delivered continuing educational programs and thought leadership outreach featured in Architect Magazine, Metropolis, Wall Street Journal, TEDxPhiladelphia, SxSW, KQED/NPR, and Cannes Lions. In 2019 she was recognized as a Metropolis Game Changer.



Closing Session Facilitators

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Lilian Asperin, AIA
Partner | WRNS Studio

As one of WRNS Studio’s Partners, Lilian helps lead the design process and build teams that deliver aspirational outcomes. A leader within the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP), she is the 2018-2021 Pacific Regional Chair. Committed to advancing the practice of architecture, Lilian also has served as a Board Director of AIA San Francisco and is the Co-Chair of the Equity by Design Committee, a call to action for equitable practice and to communicate the value of design to society.

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Ántonia Bowman, AIA
Architect | ELS

Ántonia is an architect at ELS and a registered architect in Texas and California. She earned her Master of Architecture degree from The University of Texas at Austin and holds a BA in Studio Art from Smith College. Ántonia is interested in the public experience of architecture and concentrates on cultural, civic, and higher education projects. She is committed to advocating for greater visibility and equitable opportunities for women, queer, and ethnically diverse architects in the profession. She is currently serving on the AIA CA Board of Directors as a representative of the East Bay Chapter. Outside of work, Ántonia is passionate about road cycling, spending time outdoors, and travelling.

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Julia Mandell, AIA
Associate Design Director | Wilson Associates

Julia Mandell, AIA, is a designer, architect, and advocate for equity in the field of architecture. As Co-Chair of Equity by Design, she has co-authored three Equity in Architecture Surveys and developed and produced many educational sessions, including three acclaimed Equity by Design Symposia. She has shared her expertise and passion for equitable practice with conference audiences, student groups, and in publications such as The Plan Journal and Metropolis.

Currently Associate Design Director with Wilson Associates, a design/build/development firm in Oakland, California, she is committed to the design and development of thoughtful, well-crafted spaces that are comfortable, useful, and beautiful. Her work as a designer and builder focuses on adaptive reuse, reimagining neighborhoods through small-scale interventions that accumulate over time to create welcoming, inclusive, adaptable places. She is a licensed architect in the state of California.


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Annelise Pitts, AIA

Annelise Pitts, AIA, is a passionate designer, researcher and advocate for justice, equity, diversity and inclusion in architectural practice and in the built environment. She is a Principal Consultant at Cameron MacAllister Group, advising firms in the design industry to advance these topics. As Research Chair for Equity by Design, she leads the Equity in Architecture research project and has guided the development and analysis of three national surveys exploring differential career experiences and aspirations of architecture school graduates on the basis of personal identity. This work has been widely published, most recently in Women [Re]Build: Stories, Polemics, Futures and The Plan Journal.

In her architectural practice, she works collaboratively across project scales and building typologies to develop living, learning, and gathering spaces that are both inviting and uplifting. She is a registered architect in New York State. Having recently relocated to the East Coast after years of practicing in the Bay Area with Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, she now lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, where she and her husband are raising their one-year-old daughter.













Join us.

Our collective exploration will have a deep focus on how Just and Equitable policies and frameworks drive Diversity and Inclusive opportunities and practices (J.E.D.I.). At the core, we will prioritize Justice, creating a common thread to expand our intersectional mindset. All sessions via Zoom and recorded for later viewing.

#EQxD2020 SERIES - Practice, Process and Paradigms for the J.E.D.I. Agenda

Thanks to our #EQxD2020 SERIES Champions!

  • Silver Sponsors -

    • HOK

    • SHERWIN WILLIAMS COIL COATINGS

    • OBR Architecture

  • Titanium Sponsors

    • SMARTci

    • AWV

    • PARKLEX USA

    • MORIN

  • Bronze Sponsors -

    • PYATOK

    • CAMERON MACALLISTER

    • SOM

    • SMITHGROUP

    • WRNS STUDIO

Earlier Event: January 22
#EQxD2020 Session 4: J.E.D.I. Agenda + Practice
Later Event: December 3
The JE:DI Agenda in ACTION: An Intersectional Approach for Designing a JUST Future