How can we give power to those historically excluded from planning processes and champion inclusive spaces for all, from the moment a rendering is drafted through to the completion of a building? Navigating the complex conversations of cost, timelines, funding and representation - and how these impact the inclusive design process - this week’s guests ask how we can challenge default norms to account for race, colour and culture in the built environment.
How can we give power to those historically excluded from planning processes and champion inclusive spaces for all, from the moment a rendering is drafted through to the completion of a building? Navigating the complex conversations of cost, timelines, funding and representation - and how these impact the inclusive design process - this week’s guests ask how we can challenge default norms to account for race, colour and culture in the built environment.
Meet the speakers
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Haley Rae:
Hello. Welcome to the second BDP Podcast series called Design for Inclusion. My name is Haley Rae Dinnal-Atkinson and my pronouns are she/her. I identify as a biracial, mixed, black and white, abled, cisgender woman. I'm an accessibility specialist working with Human Space, an inclusive design consultancy of BDP’s Toronto studio.
In this series, we discuss topics related to designing for a more inclusive world. From exploring gender equity through our buildings and public spaces to design that reflects race, colour and culture in the built environment. And how to design a hybrid and inclusive workplace.
Why build barriers to accessibility when you can design for inclusion?
Welcome to the conversation.
Hello and welcome to the Design for Inclusion podcast where this week we're exploring design that reflects race, colour and culture in the built environment. We'll discuss how we can challenge default norms and NIMBYism. And we'll also welcome unique experiences of our panel as we explore solutions to uphold the social determinants of health and tools to create inclusive narratives and visualisations contributing to the realisation of inclusive spaces for all.
Joining me for our conversation today is Daniel Walder, Architect Associate from the BDP London Studio.
Daniel:
Hi!
Haley Rae:
Frances Hahn, Associate from BDP's Toronto Studio.
Frances:
Hello!
Haley Rae:
And Esther Yeboah, Architectural Assistant from BDP, Sheffield Studio.
Esther:
Hi!
Haley Rae:
Design often considers the default human to be male, heterosexual, cisgender, abled, middle class and white. How can we challenge default norms to create inclusive spaces for all?
Daniel:
This is perhaps something that I've thought about quite a lot through the lens of race in particular. And I think it's interesting how you can often see in our towns and cities that the kind of spaces that we create have been designed historically by white middle-class men. And that's often evident in the kind of historical references.
So, I think the history of architecture that is taught focuses very much on the white middle-class history of architecture and kind of erases some cultures. And I think so by erasing those cultures, it makes it quite difficult for people to kind of place themselves in the lineage of the way that their towns and cities have evolved and therefore find it hard to place themselves in continuing that conversation and continuing that evolution.
So, I think if we can perhaps broaden our knowledge of history and historical precedent to include a much wider range of cultures, then perhaps we can create more inclusive spaces going forward.
Frances:
I love how you said Daniel, there you said “place ourselves in the lineage”. And that's a really interesting way to think about buildings, that really, it's part of a sort of broader historical belonging as well. And then the idea that we could continue through wider education, so we could actually just pull in all these other strains of history in order to place ourselves within those spaces.
Daniel:
Yeah, I guess because I think that's often I think where a sense of pride comes from is that that sense of belonging to something bigger, and that's both bigger now, but bigger historically and in the future. So yeah, I guess if sense of belonging and I guess a sense of pride in a place are linked. So yeah, yeah. I just think that's really important.
Frances:
Yeah. I thought about this question in terms of in Toronto, a lot of projects that we end up working on are private sector projects. And so, the idea that we can't really create inclusion if we're just following market forces, as in we're not creating places for everybody if it's about competition, because essentially if it's competition for resources and that gains people some form of equity so they're able to buy their homes or these condominiums here in Toronto that is creating spaces for them.
And really, I think that in as many places and sites and arenas as possible, if we can reduce competition to bring things out of the private sector and into the public sector and really treat diversity as an asset within those realms, I think that's how we do it.
Esther:
Yeah. I often wonder about architects, if they can't build for inclusivity and they can't build sustainably and they can't build for a building to actually perform its function, are they actually good architects? If it's a pretty building, but only the tall white man is welcome there, then you haven't really done your job and it's a useless building.
So, until it's almost you're a bad architect unless you can design inclusively and design for multiple people, then you don't really have the respect that you should probably get.
Daniel:
I guess in a way, it's important to recognise that we, as designers, can only really design through our own lens. And it's only with lots of conversations as part of the design process and a genuine listening that you can then kind of connect with others. So, I guess it's important not to kind of pretend to be something we're not and actually just accept that you can only design from your own perspective and yeah, you can kind of listen and really kind of engage with people in the process and let's create more inclusive spaces.
Frances:
Yeah, I love that you said “listen” there, Daniel, because I think that looking ahead to some of the questions that Haley Rae has sent us, listening really comes up a fair bit in terms of how we're going to address these things. I think it'll be a little bit of a thread we can follow through this.
Haley Rae:
How can we ensure that, you know, while designers may be open to listening, that they're in fact accountable to what they've heard and implementing those lessons learned into the design itself?
Esther:
I think it probably starts with the base, as in the first set of people who are in the team and what their diversity is, because if you've got a bunch of males, white males trying to build for a multicultural community, they're not going to have the same perspective as someone else. And it's maybe not just as simple as adding a token person of colour, but if it is limited to three white dudes, then maybe public consultations, there are ways of broadening it out.
But I think one of the problems is acknowledging that you have your own personal ignorance. Architects, I think, often are wonderfully arrogant in that they think that they can bring real change. And sometimes that's not… their idea of change is not always what's appropriate. I just graduated from university and in our second year we were looking at different cities. We were studying different cities. And I got Tokyo, but some people got South Africa. And I was very excited because I lived in Ghana. I've lived in Ghana for all my life and I was very excited to see what they would do with South Africa because oh yeah, you know, I’ve got friends from South Africa and I went to a Pan-African school and it was very much how I thought I suppose it would be slightly scathing, slightly dismissive of the history and the role that certain things, political things would provide that sort of perspective. So, they completely, almost completely ignored the role that apartheid would have had in dividing up different plots of land and how that would develop Cape Town itself. And it was very interesting that they did not take on that at all.
And of course, their response was then to bring modernisation, bring change and, you know, improve it when it is not really the response you should probably get from it. It was a slightly tone deaf, and I think that's often if you don't ask any questions and if you don't talk to anyone else outside of your group of people, the response you're going to get is going to be so shallow, it's going to be irrelevant.
Frances:
I agree with that. I think that it's so easy. Well, in all of our lives to take the easy road and that that easy road can be a design solution. And then it's not really a solution. As you said before, in so many ways, it's about tackling the really hard things and the hard conversations. It's hard to design when you have so many people to think of.
It's hard to design when you're thinking about the people that aren't in the room. You're not just pleasing this to clients you have with you, but you're acknowledging everybody that's involved as well as those people's ancestors. So that's hard and I think that's in some design processes I've been in. Sometimes those client meetings feel like rubber stamp meetings, that we're really just there to check off a box and then we're moving on.
And then I've been involved with other processes where we have a meeting and the product is not moved forward because we did not get that consensus in the room that we needed, and so we have another meeting and that is so incredibly slow to design for everybody. And in terms of a service-based business where we're talking about fees, it's very difficult to want to approach that and to approach it seriously and meaningfully.
Daniel:
I think it's really interesting that you referred to the voices that aren't in the room, because I think often on a project you hear people say things like, Oh, we've got lots of well-heeled clients and residents in this area that we need to kind of consider in the design process. And, you know, they mean kind of wealthier residents. And I in that situation sometimes think, well, what about the not-so-well-heeled residents? Do we not care about their voices? But I think often what they mean is that, you know, there are going to be some wealthier people around with louder voices, more time to dedicate to public consultation, etc., and that that can make things quite difficult.
So, I think we have a responsibility to, as you say, represent the voices or try to find ways of reaching the people who aren't in the room and kind of broaden out the range of voices that we're hearing during a design process because otherwise you just design through a very specific lens.
You know, some people are ignored and then that can have, you know, terrible consequences for those communities.
Frances:
Yes. And in some ways, it makes our jobs easier if we ignore the people that aren't in the room, because then we can get the approval that we need to move forward. We can make our project successful. But if we go back to Esther's earlier statement about is it really successful if it's not designing for everybody, then in the long run, we're failing and it's better to kind of tackle those hard things at every point.
Haley Rae:
I'm going to use the idea of public consultation, which I think I've heard brought up from each of you in various ways, and the way in which we consider perhaps the limitations of our individual lenses and the essential need to just be more open, listen, have those conversations and move us on to the idea of NIMBY, an acronym for the phrase ‘Not in my Backyard’, which is a characterisation of opposition by residents to proposed developments in their local area, as well as support for strict land use regulations.
How do we challenge NIMBYism during public consultation and/or throughout the design process?
Daniel:
I guess a really interesting thing about that phrase is “not in my backyard”. It's kind of whose backyard is that? Because, you know, typically there are lots of different communities, you know, particularly in London, you know, where we are at the moment, that are kind of living integrated with one another. So, the idea that one particular group can speak on behalf of everyone and, you know, say things like “not in my backyard” is nonsense. And, you know, it comes back to that kind of thinking about the voices that aren't represented and making sure that the kind of attitudes towards development are much more representative and much more inclusive. So, I think, yeah, NIMBYism is one of those things that very much panders to the well-heeled, louder, wealthier residents often, and then kind of has negative consequences for perhaps those that aren't quite so wealthy.
Haley Rae:
So, I'd like to pull back and think about something, Daniel, that you said earlier about, you know, our sense of belonging and our pride, both with recognition for our history, but also pride for our future and thinking about the question. So, gentrification, revitalisation, refinancialisation and urban renewal tends to erase black, indigenous and people of colour.
How can we begin to think about how the inclusive design process helps to create a sense of belonging for these individuals, for these communities, in new buildings and public spaces?
Daniel:
I mean, I would say that, first of all, it comes down to the teams that are designing having better representation. And, you know, that's a very complex issue that, you know, I think in many ways, you kind of sometimes you have to see it to be it. But also, I would say as well as the teams that are kind of designing places and spaces, there's also a question of where the money's coming from, which often controls what is designed.
So, you kind of have perhaps the kind of gatekeepers, if you like, to the architectural profession and to planning, etc., that are kind of making quite important decisions about what is and what isn't designed. So, I think perhaps if we have a kind of better democratisation of the way things are conceived, the way things are approved, then perhaps we can include more people.
I think a good example of that is what's happened in the music industry, particularly in the UK with the UK grime scene and when you had that kind of advent of things like YouTube, people like Jamal Edwards setting up SBTV that created a platform for lots of kind of undiscovered talent and then that platform was kind of taken and spawned this kind of music scene that is essentially kind of black people taking responsibility for their own narratives, telling their own stories and telling it to the world.
So, we need our kind of own moment, our own SBTV moment, perhaps in architecture where we have a better platform for a wider range of architects.
Esther:
Is always a big problem when you need money to do your job. And the money comes from somewhere and that they have a certain say in how you're supposed to design and you yourself have a responsibility to other people. And it's a sad circle that you have to sort of run around on because they your client can veto it. If they say, no, I would prefer this place to be a white-only place in theory, with freedom of speech and freedom of everything, it's not implausible. But I think it's more the responsibility to say no, because you can't just say, I won't do this project. And it's not going to happen type of thing, but someone else is going to have to do it.
Frances:
I've thought about this question really differently. I think that I sort of thought about the word gentrification and thinking about it from the racialised groups that are in that term BIPOC. And I know in talking to an indigenous consultant on a project we had here, he really resisted the term BIPOC because he really believed that we so often are using that terminology to forget the individuality of the groups that are within that term.
And this is especially true. I think, when we're talking about creating belonging in cities in Canada, especially, or gentrification, because indigenous peoples were forcibly removed from any cities or towns within Canada. And that was kind of a forced erasure. And so, the question of gentrification is kind of hollow in an arena where really the loudest voices and then indigenous groups are talking about land back, and kind of reconciliation is not about creating places where there might be indigenous belonging, it's about giving actual land back to people. And so, this makes me think a lot about the project that I'm working on here in Toronto, which is the Indigenous Hub, and in that case, there was a parcel of land relatively small within the cityscape. It's 2.4 acres I believe, and the provincial government gave it to Anishinaabe Health, which is a group that it's aspired for a very long time to build a health care centre for Indigenous Peoples in Toronto.
And there's multiple other examples of this happening, albeit very, very slowly. But really, I think that Indigenous groups would, would talk about land back as reconciliation, as opposed to trying to carve out spaces within the public sphere that everybody else is trying to carve out.
Daniel:
Yeah, I mean, I would really agree with you in terms of kind of saying that the term BIPOC or in the UK we would see say BAME is quite problematic because it assumes the default is therefore white and everyone else is other. And that does kind of, as you say, lead to this kind of oversimplification of what the BAME or the BIPOC community want, as though it's this one homogenous thing.
But at the same time, it's kind of where we are at the moment. And although it's imperfect, I do think it has some kind of value in recognising as a first step perhaps that there are differences that need to be kind of acknowledged.
Frances:
That's very brilliant way of thinking of it. I really appreciate the perspective.
Haley Rae:
I think the conversation on terminology, I think we can all probably agree that, yes, it's constantly evolving. And in the same way that we begin to think about BIPOC as acronym for groups that are undoubtedly deserving of their recognition, it makes me think about our conversation in the previous podcast and the focus there on the LGBT community and the way that that acronym has continuously evolved.
And, you know, there's both strength in the in the full acronym, but there needs to be focus and attention on each of those individual parts that contribute to that collective as well.
Frances:
Yeah. And I know in many ways our discussion here is really about our acronyms, but I think that I really want to acknowledge it is great that that is a term that is where we are now and is evolving I think is essential to the discussion because, in many ways, the urban spheres and the landscape that we're in is also at a moment where we're all evolving.
You know, there's there is some level of momentum and in terms of change and we're here to kind of move that forward a little bit faster.
Daniel:
Just going back to something that we touched on earlier, which was to do with the money, essentially, where does the money come from? And therefore, the power that has obviously, I think it's really important that we have recognised that what we do is, you know, as architects and designers, is so rooted in the reality of the, you know, the real world, the economy, etc., you need capital in order to build things.
And so, I think that perhaps one of the ways in that our built environment can be more inclusive is by perhaps more kind of democratised ways of funding projects, you know, and kind of pooling resources and kind of getting the kind of land ownership, for example. So, things like community land trusts, which are essentially kind of groups of people coming together to acquire a piece of land and then keep the land and the value of that land within the group.
People come in and out, etc. It's a kind of much more democratised way of designing and developing places. And I think that then through, you know, through that that economic mechanism could perhaps then lead to more inclusive places, to places like Christiana (Freetown) in Copenhagen is a really interesting example.
Frances:
And those community land trusts, are they then developed?
Daniel:
Yes, sorry. Yes. So, you collectively kind of acquire the land and then you can develop property on that land. I think the key is to do with how then property is then bought and sold within that because you don't take the value of the land with you. So, I think that's the key difference. So obviously when you buy a normal house, most of the value that you're buying is actually in the land. And so it's a much more kind of open and democratic way of developing places.
Frances:
I'm trying to think of an example here in Canada that is that has the same flavour of community, because certainly when we build condominiums here, what ends up happening is that the condominium is built by a developer. Everyone buys their units and then the condominium board takes over the ownership. But it doesn't it certainly does not have the same idea of community wrapped into it. It's still very much based on individual assets, which I think is problematic.
Daniel: And essentially extracting value from the land. You know, by the developer. That's the key goal, isn't it? Really is about creating communities.
Frances:
Exactly. Exactly.
Esther:
I like that it sounds similar to a sort of a vernacular village typology where it's sort of some great grandfather that owns all the land and all the family comes and lives on the land. And they take that plot for their five children. Their five children expand and have more land. And it's sort of… it's almost like you're going back in time to pick up on what we already knew and just using it again quite like that.
Daniel:
And for me, it places the value of that place in its function as a place to live and as a community, not as an asset. The minute it becomes an asset is when it kind of, you know, it ceases to necessarily be about community as its primary focus.
Frances:
And also to bring it back to your first comment, Dan, and when you're talking about the idea of lineage and if we're thinking about lineage in kind of a broader way other than just kind of white male colonial for us and we're thinking about land as ancestral and land as kin to us, not simply assets, then it absolutely makes sense that we're not it doesn't become block 20 in an urban, you know, it doesn't have a number associated with it in the same way. It is a place and it's a place that is connected in terms of everything that is on that site. Right. It’s part of its identity.
Daniel:
I guess it's like conflict to have in my mind thinking about land and communities in that way, though, is kind of ancestral is what does that then mean for kind of the evolution of places and the kind of integration of different communities? So, I think one of the great things about London, for example, is that it's is, you know, it's kind of being contributed to over hundreds of years by lots of different communities that have come and gone. And so, it's kind of how do you create or keep the sense of a place whilst still allowing for that kind of diversity, that dynamic nature of the population coming and going?
Frances:
Yeah, and I think that certain cities achieve that, right? I think that probably if you look at New York or you look at L.A., it certainly has they all have these, they're informed by the communities that take them over in many ways. I think that Toronto doesn't necessarily have that in the same way, even though it is so multicultural, because it really is that colonial grid that has cut it up into little squares, which is so in opposition to the way that the first nations, you know, look at that land and have lived on that land for many thousands of years.
Esther:
But I think to totally disregard it, that in itself, it being cut up in its own little grids is a part of the history. It may be it's not appropriate to completely disregard it, because it's just to say, I don't know how to phrase this, but in history, good or bad, is still history. And it gives a city a sense of place.
In the coastal cities of Ghana, it's all colonial buildings and it's all colonial castles and things like that. And it's very much it's its own identity. And sure, it was slave castles and it has its own very negative history. It still is. You can't look at it and say it's anywhere else. It is Cape Coast of Ghana. It's got its identity, even though it's a negative one.
And I think moving forward, it's the balance between respecting history and not condoning it, because history has shown itself to be terrible. We are terrible human beings most of the time. And history has always proven that. But it's an architect's responsibility to hold on to that history and give it significance without it becoming sort of everything. I don't know.
Frances:
I think what we're talking before, it's responding to place and time, not just place. So, we're thinking about where we're at the moment, where we're heading towards. And in many ways, we're doing that kind of visionary, reaching towards maybe the direction we want to turn history in rather than just staying rooted in the block that we're stuck in right now.
Haley Rae:
Using what you've said, Frances, about responding to place in time. And, you know, as designers having the capacity to inform both our present and responding to the times as well as sort of informing the future through our built form, as well as the narratives and visualisations that go along with those built forms. I'd like to ask how do inclusive narratives and visualisations contribute to the realization of those inclusive, built environments in the present and into the future? And perhaps what tools have we used to help respond to that?
Daniel:
I think that's a really tricky question because and I'm kind of reflecting on this. I think perhaps the reason for that is because in my own work, I don't think the narratives necessarily have been particularly inclusive. So, I can think of very few examples where there has been the kind of concerted effort to listen and to kind of respond to the narratives of you know, a diverse community in the designs and in the way that signs are represented.
So, I think perhaps architecture and design in the UK is still a very white-dominated space. So, from my perspective, it is quite difficult to kind of think of any, any examples where has being kind of successful, kind of inclusion of a more diverse narrative.
Esther:
So, Vicky Casey from the Sheffield office helped set up BDP’s People Library. And it's simple as a concept. It's Illustrator sort of placeholders of people of various colours, various shapes, sizes, ability. And it's just an Illustrator document and the whole concept has got like a whole document stating that it's important to even in the images that you send out to clients to encourage that it's not just white people in a line or smiling at the camera, but that it gives importance to a more diverse community, even if the community isn't necessarily that diverse. We're in England and some cities in England aren't the most diverse that we're even designing for, but it's more giving the opportunity for it to be a place for other people, a place for everyone.
And I quite like it. I very much like using it. It's a very helpful tool, but it's a small intervention, but it's also a very big one because it feels very simple, but it has a great impact in sort of everything that you're putting out, the first visual that you see. It's got everyone in the front, everyone smiling or not smiling. It doesn't really matter. It's just that everybody is represented and it's good.
Frances:
Yeah, I've had a chance to look at that library too is amazing how small a step, but how large an impact it has or it can have. And in so many ways, as designers, what we're doing is we are creating the narrative. You know, our clients will come to us and they'll give us some statistics and they'll tell us who the demographic is, maybe.
And then our job is to create the narrative of the space. And it's so important to get into that narrative. All the possible people that might ever use this space and we are so adamant to include wherever possible. We quite often work with external 3D visualisation firms quite often that are based overseas. And what we get back is these renderings that have, you know, very white, very hetero, very able-bodied people in them.
And we are pushing back to them and saying, no, we want someone, you know, someone who's differently abled. We want some tones of skin, we want something else. And which is so interesting, because that is someone from another place that would also be racialised in this environment, feeding back to us what they think that we want. And we're saying and, you know, to take that step and say, no, you include yourself here as well as everyone else that might use the space.
And which kind of gives you a sense that we we've swung so far to one end and really to bring the narrative back to that lovely, well, optimistic and hopeful one where we really are creating these spaces that are for everybody, not only in the beautiful picture, but in the function and the use and the sense of belonging.
Daniel:
I mean, I think that's so true. I think it could be tempting to think that the people that you use in your images isn't necessarily important. But I think we all kind of recognise the power of an image in the design process. And, you know, you can sit in a room full of architects talking about the shade of the brickwork for half an hour, but not necessarily think about the people and the activity that's in an image, I think, yeah, it's definitely as important in many ways, the life and the activity that's seen in a space, in an image, you know, as much as the shade of the brickwork or the quality of the light and all those other things.
Frances:
And we are creating those images for our clients. We're creating those images. I mean, if we're an even if we're not actually creating those 3D renderings, we're creating the narrative that the client is going to see and then the world is going to see afterwards. So, we do have a very important point.
Daniel:
I think it does also then feed through to the design moves that you make. So, I can actually think of an example where I was working on some university, accommodation and we had an image of a kind of common space, you know, kitchen dining space and the client picked up that a lot of the, the, perhaps the cultural references that we were using in terms of what student life was were a bit dated and perhaps not matched to their own student population.
So maybe the focus was around alcohol and things. And actually, they said, you know, we have quite a diverse community here and the focus is a lot more around food. It's not around alcohol. And, you know, big groups coming together around food was their kind of particular focus. And so that did then lead to a kind of change in the emphasis of some of the spaces, you know, on food and those kind of social coming together, if you like. So, I think as well as images, it also can have an impact on design and design moves.
Frances:
Yeah, absolutely. That reminds me of a similar experience I had also with university and academic clients where so much, we did the same thing. We thought they're just like typical university kids. They're just, you. They're maybe 19 years old and they drink a lot and they would eat french fries for lunch.
Daniel:
Maybe guilty of our own experiences.
Frances:
Yes, exactly. Much of the population is actually young married mothers who are leaving their kids with relatives or in care for the day and they're bringing their food with them. They're not buying food. We actually need like a bank of 25 microwaves so people could heat up their food. And really the experience and this kind of shared eating space is bringing together your own food and sitting with a group and sort of enjoying the food. Which was again, we brought this assumption to the table and our client was educating us.
Daniel:
I guess there's perhaps a kind of a generational shift as well that so not only thinking about different communities that we're designing for in terms of, you know, culture and race and religion and all those other things, but also just age. And I guess I've kind of grown to terms with the fact that I'm no longer a young person.
And so, when I go into a university and I design in a university environment, I still imagine that students are like me. I'm still, in my own mind, 21 maybe. You kind of have to, yeah, listen and acknowledge things have changed, you know, an enormous amount in and will you know, will continue to change. So, I guess it's a kind of reminder, even in an environment where you feel familiar and you think, you know to keep listening and making sure that, you know, not only thinking through your own lens.
Esther:
It's exciting though, because you get to be constantly learning, you're constantly finding new things. And if you can do it respectfully and with attention to detail, it's a fun process. Life is a continuing evolutionary process. And this is exciting world we live in to be able to learn new things and you grow older and you get new perspectives and you can go back and look at other people who have different perspectives.
And it's a very exciting world too, especially the technological age. You can access so many different people from so many different places. And it's never been a better time than now to get fully into including everyone because we've got the resources for it, might as well use them.
Haley Rae:
Daniel, Frances, Esther, we greatly appreciate your time and contribution to this conversation. Thank you for sharing your experiences related to this topic. And we've certainly got a lot to share with what we've learned today in studio and with our collaborators.
Thank you to you all and be well.