 Good evening everyone. It's really my great pleasure to welcome Gabrielle Bullock tonight to present her work as an award-winning principle of Perkins and Will, where she is also the director of global diversity. In learning more about Bullock's incredible and inspiring trajectory as an architect and as a thought leader whose work is dedicated to fundamentally altering our disciplines and practices and their impact on the built environment, the words that emerge to describe her and her work are a powerful catalyst for change. Bullock has played a key role in Perkins and Will's success for over three decades, working in both the New York and Los Angeles studios where she became the first African American and the first woman to rise to the position of managing director. During her tenure, she has led a number of the practices most complex and high-profile projects, including the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, one of the largest building projects ever completed for the University of California system, and the King Saoud bin Abdulize's University for Health Sciences, amongst other. Bullock has also been able to combine her passions for architecture and social justice to affect positive change. The impact has been palpable. Her unique role as the firm's director of global diversity, which she has held since 2013 was an industry first. Her appointment quickly set off a wave of similar roles, programs and initiatives across the design profession, designed to support and promote diversity on both a micro and macro level, both in and out of the studio. Bullock has become a sought after speaker and educator on issues related to social equity and design, including race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion and physical and mental ability. I quote her, the work we do is directly tied to cultural differences Bullock said at her induction ceremony to the IIDA's international board for which she serves as president. That's why, quote, the design profession should mirror the community and clients we serve. We change what we design by who designs it, end of quote. This mirroring and impact is most clearly visible in her current project Destination Crenshaw, a 1.3 mile open air space that will serve as an art museum and cultural center for West Central Los Angeles, conceived as a series of community spaces, including an outdoor park and works by black artists to reinvigorate the area and celebrate Los Angeles. Bullock has also been an important voice for a is equity and architecture commission and its diversity council, driving the implementation of critical program and policy changes, such as a resolution 18 three diversity pipeline and national representation. She has been a captivating speaker at engagements such as the 2019 AI women's leadership summit 2019 and compass inclusive architecture conference and AI 2015 powerful women leading design symposium. Bullock was awarded the prestigious Whitney M. Young Award in 2020, named for civil rights leader Whitney Young Jr. This award distinguishes an architect or architectural organization that embodies social responsibility and actively addresses a relevant issue such as affordable housing and awareness or universal access will have graduated in 1984 from the Rhode Island School of Design with degrees in fine arts and architecture, becoming the second black woman to earn an architecture degree from that university. Please join me in welcoming Gabrielle Bullock as well as our very own Juan Hereros, who has led the thinking about constructing new modes of engaged practices over the years here at GSAP, and who will give the responses and I'm really looking forward to the work and the conversation. Welcome. Good evening. Thank you for inviting me to talk to you tonight. The title of my lecture is beyond, you know, harm visionary design and practice solutions through the Jedi lens Jedi is justice equity diversity and inclusion. To me, this means transformation. Now, we've galvanized in the past without profession many years ago to address the environmental crisis and focus on a more sustainable approach to design. We change codes municipal mandates zoning and land use and even even our office cultures. I'm sorry. I'm having technical difficulties. I'll use my. I'm so sorry. Well today and for decades, we are faced with another environmental crisis, the human crisis sustainability and resilience of our communities. This is the fragile social infrastructure of our environment. I'll use my story to demonstrate the sense of urgency for a transfer transformation toward a more equitable and representative industry from my dream as a 12 year old, my journey through design school and career trajectory focused on purpose purpose driven work and practice. Let's start at the beginning. So I'm a city girl. I grew up in New York City, born in Harlem and raised in the box was a multicultural city urban center. I went to the high school of music and art, which was a creative community, diverse and inclusive. I felt, you know, there was belonging, yet you could be an individual. I grew up by a family of strong supportive women who taught me I could do anything I put my mind to it. And I'm also the first generation college grad. So at 12, I realized instinctively that the inequities of living conditions of black and brown communities was was inequitable, and it was actually not very humane. I wanted to become an architect. I believe that everyone deserves a beautiful, beautiful and humane place to live. So it was a reaction to public housing like this, and this is actually not a bad looking one. And how how they didn't perpetuate pride, ownership, ownership, happiness or well being. I wanted to become an architect and proved the way my people lived, believing that everyone deserved a beautiful place to live. So I go to RISD in 1979, and I can't talk about where I am today without going back to my time at RISD my architecture education, my expectation coming from high school like music and art a city like New York, that it would be, you know, as creative as diverse Well, it wasn't it was sort of a culture shock, the lack of diversity among students, among faculty lack of an inclusive curriculum. I didn't see me or my lived experiences represented in the curriculum. When I provided the foundation and critical skills of design, it was represented through a white Eurocentric lens, focus largely on examples of iconic architects, architects, and individual genius, the club was a Frank Lloyd right. The club Johnson will be con and goes on and on. It wasn't until I think my Lynn was probably my second to last year, 83 or 84, or my Lynn was a student. I forget where she went, but at the time she won the Vietnam Memorial project, and I remember it vividly as an example of cultural and social influence a sort of remembrance design. And so I finally connected with a project an example of a project of what we could do to have social impact and connection. Then there was your architectural jargon, which I made little sense to me, but I powered through. What I didn't what I wasn't exposed to are architects like Paul Revere Williams, or Norma Scleric. And while I've heard of Max Bond, and a friend who worked for him, I was not exposed to architects of color, after American architects. And they say if you can see it, you can be it. My thesis with housing in Harlem. I set out to focus on on on housing. And so I did it finally in my thesis and felt pretty proud about it. As as my bio says I was a second black woman to graduate from with these architecture department. And in spite of the homogeneous nature of academia and professional practice back then, I absorbed the knowledge the skill and learned all the rules because they really thought those are the rules and the lingo so I could pursue and achieve my aspirations, and then finally break the rules. You know the issues of issues facing women and people of color. The only one in the room is real, and it's been real for a long time. I think we are making some progress, but, you know, being the only one of anything, a woman, LGBTQ, youngest person in the room, oldest person in the room. It affects many of us differently. Some feel invisible. I've learned over the years that, since I'm the only one in the room, I got the stage and might as well use it, but not everybody is able to do that. I am one of 502 African American women licensed architects in the US, and that's point 2%. This is one of the, you know, this was it was not necessarily determined a deterrent or significant obstacle, but it has shaped my perspective and my goals and my drive to help transform our profession to be more inclusive and representational. After RISD, I worked for three small firms that did the kind of housing that I wanted to do. And it was the 80s and it was a recession. And so they all went belly up. They went out of business. So I found myself at a health care firm, which would become Perkins and Will. Whatever I was going to do, I knew it had to have a purpose. This drive led me to designing hospitals, designing for hospitals, and eventually doing the work I do today, which I'll show you in a minute. So whether it's from the large medical center in UCLA, it's Ronald Reagan UCLA, or higher ed in Saudi Arabia, the first co-ed university, neurosciences, a pediatric hospital, to a simple facade improvement for an ambulatory care to a Girl Scout camp. All of these to me serve a purpose, a larger purpose, a social purpose. And many of them came from connections, you know, I was on the board of the Girl Scouts, and their camp burned down. So from a social responsibility project as master plan, we got the cabin and the dining hall. But I want to go back to the really important projects in Saudi Arabia, because this is where I really enjoyed the need, the necessity to research the culture. We did not necessarily represent the culture, but we knew it was very important in order to design an authentic response and authentic design that we must research the culture in every way. And that's something that we worked hard to embed in our teams. It wasn't necessarily natural or the automatic to the typical way you would start design, but it really represented the need for cultural competency. So in 2013, after completing the Saudi projects and transitioning from the managing director role, I decided it was time to help the firm really advance, put a stake in the ground to promote change in the profession around diversity, inclusion, and engagement. And my commitment went beyond the personal stature. It was really an aspirate and beyond aspiration to make real action. I created the role, the diversity role and strategy to transform Perkins and Well in the profession to be more diverse, inclusive and engaged. And at the time, I'd seen the impact when we don't consider cultural uniqueness of who we are designing for that, along with being frustrated with being the only one in the room and inequities abound in our profession. And when I propose that I say, well, I better have the reasons why it's imperative that we do this and it wasn't hard to determine that there was a demographic imperative. The diversity of our society was increasing our, I'm sorry, in the business imperative there was research that the more diverse you are, the more profitable and productive you are. And then the humane, the human imperative was really strong. And it's even stronger today. So we set out with started with a mission that basically says that we feel that the more diverse we are more inclusive we are the more successful we will be and that we were. We wanted to reflect the diversity of the communities and clients we serve. And the whole strategy, and there's a strategic plan around this whole whole program around this one pillar was to build the culture of diversity equity inclusion within Perkins and Well. And then to establish it as a core value design, sustainability, resiliency, all of these are core values and diversity inclusion ought to be as at the same level, and then to build the pipeline to make sure that that when we have conversations like this 1015 years from now, there's more than 502 of me, and there's more women and there's more, more representation across the board from school to practice. And then finally to lead the way for industry to become for the entire industry to become more diverse and inclusive. That went really fine. And we worked hard to develop programs and strategies and build it up, not only from the top down, but from the bottom up with our staff, and then fast forward to last year. And honestly, having having been doing this since 2013. It wasn't until last year, late 2019 that we really said we have to focus on Jedi or diversity inclusion in our work, building the culture of the of the practice is one thing but how do we translate this entire work. Well the events of last year really gave us the impetus that the push to really focus on it and challenge the status quo it's about challenging status quo and practice and culture to tear down those barriers and build a more just and equitable society. And why now, why equity and community, why equity and design. Well again, I think the pandemic really shine the light on the disproportionate disproportionate impact on marginalized communities of people of color, Hispanics died to almost two and a half times more than white people African Americans, a little less than two so the, and if they are if those communities are the essential workers. They are our social infrastructure, and some say, well, you know it hit those communities hardest because they live in urban cities. Well, in fact, 56% of the world population lives in urban areas and they're not all dying. So, it's more about, you know, the quality, and the quality and quantity affordable housing, the extended family situations among these populations, poverty, etc. I think while this is a public health crisis primarily urban planning and design can mitigate its impact and address the issue of affordable housing, public transportation green space and walkable communities all to strengthen the social infrastructure. Some of the inequities has to do with racism structural and institutional racism where the practices and policies have have led to adverse outcomes and conditions for communities inadvertently. And detrimental to two communities of color, like zoning and covenants, we have the opportunity to address these inequities with our clients, our projects by first understanding what they are. And then using our expertise and our cultural competency to help mitigate the impact on our communities. And the pandemic revealed the level of impact structural institutional inequities on our most most vulnerable communities. And then you can't you know if we look at this I call it the web of oppression. You know we tend to look at staying our lane, we're going to look at the housing or we're going to look at healthcare but we have to look at the entire web of the social systems. You can see how the criminal justice system has impacted black and brown communities over decades, the education system disparities in that etc. So the problem of adapting the social system to its physical and social environments probably not the right thing to do. The most important problem is in the respect of procuring resources needed for the activities of these systems and providing protection against physical and social threats. So how do we transform. How do the transformer requires stepping out of our comfort zone, having the difficult conversations about race exclusion in equity, educate ourselves and learn what are the historic and current barriers, attitudes that perpetuate inequitable conditions. Understand history of civil rights segregation urban renewal gentrification, all of these things that I think up until last year we were not all even slightly aware. Some are more aware and can speak to it but I think it's, it's our responsibility to recognize our role as stewards in dismantling these barriers and embrace the full spectrum of our society through equitable design. These slides I'm going to show you about educating ourselves. This is something that we did for a wide last summer is to really communicate and educate the entire firm on what these barriers are so that we, so that we can address them. We can we know that they're there we know how they got there. The civil rights movement, right decades long struggle by African Americans and they're like minded allies to end institutional racial discrimination. We have urban renewal, the reclaiming for physical infrastructure significant. Significant reason why the extreme. I'm sorry, the extreme wealth gap occurs today. Degradation. You know the flight from the inner cities by the white community depleting the tax base leaving islands of poverty so a lot of the conditions in communities of color urban communities didn't just happen overnight, it's been systematic over time. So all of these things plan shrinkage are all important points in history that have impacted our cities, our communities that we need to be aware of. And the one that most should be familiar to us is gentrification displacement and erasure. And so gentrification is the change of a character through influx of more affluent residents. In other words, you beautify a community and then the people that live there to leave because the prices went up of the real estate. Other people moved in for the same for the same reason why they were being beautified in the first place probably our culture, etc. So as part of the education I'm sure we've already a whole bunch of books last couple of months last year. I find this one particularly helpful and also one called houses for the people by Eric Kleinberg which really talks about social infrastructure. Now I'm going to share with you destination crunch out, which I think is a case study an example of these concepts and more concepts that demonstrate that that really address the equity and community and avoiding cultural erasure. The destination crunch are is in South Los Angeles on Crunchel Boulevard. We spent, let me just explain. So the project was precipitated by the extension of the train system from the airport down at the bottom to all the way to downtown and it goes through the Crenshaw district which is the largest black community west of the Mississippi. And it's been there for, for decades. Part of the great migration from the south, many, many of the black community settled there. And as with major iconic commercial streets and in Los Angeles sunset Boulevard will show Boulevard. The train is either below grade, or elevated. The 1.3 mile stretch through the major commercial area of Crenshaw. It's at great. And despite the, the communities fight to have it either be elevated or below grade. It's at great so they decided in their words to make lemonade out of lemon. This is an example of a half century of disinvestment in this community. And for Angelenos who ride the train at grade, you know could provide a unique opportunity to get to get writers to this area once we're done. And it would be a great experience. But the vision for destination crunch off. It's an outdoor art and cultural experience and is dedicated to legitimizing and celebrating the culture of Crenshaw, and thereby contributing contributing to the overall health and sustainability of the neighborhood. It's to celebrate their heritage leverage existing assets and create new experiences and also catalyze growth. And the great is the endeavor subtle that was moved to Los Angeles to go to the science museum. Well, the endeavor went down Crenshaw Boulevard Crenshaw Boulevard is probably six lanes total three in each direction, and they mowed down all of the trees along this Boulevard, you get the endeavor to the space museum to science museum. Before all our objectives were place keeping not place making this place already exists. So it's place keeping engaging the community as a design partner, giving them design agency, avoid cultural erasure, be a partner, not a savior. And to to be an economic catalyst, and hopefully to be a, an example, a model for social equity and black community revitalization for other cities. Perkins and will was handpicked by the client for our cultural and civic experience and for the Atlanta belt line, because it's sort of a similar concept. But more importantly, aside from the expertise, cultural competency, representation and connection to the community was very important to them. Phil Freelon, late Phil Freelon was principal advisor he and Zena both worked on the National Museum of African American history and culture, the project manager Drake Dillard lives in the community, and then there's me. It was important for the client to have a shorthand trust amongst their team. Now I'll go into deep dive into the concept of this project. So we spent, we engage the community as I said as a design partner, we had listening to many, many listening sessions, they told us what they wanted for this project what they wanted to represent. They talked about the history of the community of its residents of its of its legacy members, and it became clear that it was a resilient community. It may be small, but it was really strong. And so we looked at the giant star graph, which was used as bedding hay and slave ships. But it's a very hardy grass in the US it's called Bermuda grass. And it's considered with promise and disdain because you can't kill it. So metaphorically, and the root system is horizontal so it's a rhizome. And so it became the unifying scene for our design it's small strong root, hard to destroy and survived in places that should have died. And I love this quote, a slum would endure if residents left as quickly as they could. A neighborhood could transform itself as people wanted to stay. It was the investment of time, money and love that would make the difference. And that is our goal with destination crunch. So if you imagine this sort of bigger ground of the 1.3 miles, and you'll see the cross sections of streets. Imagine that as a root system as the rhizome root system. And we took that. And we use it at we at each intersection, we've come up with four modes of interpreting the experience improvisation at floss and improvisation celebrates resourcefulness as the positive outcome of struggle. So if you're familiar with Nipsey hustle, he was a musician, a hip hop artist had a store on floss and he was murdered several years ago. First, at 54th Street, first person stories of significant moments and historical first dreams at 50th Street celebrates the realm of daydreaming. The seemingly impossible aspirations free of constraints. Then finally to the right, which is the North. At the Merck Park is togetherness and it celebrates resilience of black culture, born out of togetherness that is born, both ancestral and ongoing necessity. This experience is not meant to be chronological, or, you know, historical like, like you might see in some we used to call this an outdoor museum but So it is a multi discipline disciplinary project architecture, largely landscape or urban design exhibit and interpret design and of course public art. But it's a series of pocket parks on both sides of the street. That each tell a story through the design of the parks, the art that will be commissioned for each park. And they will all tell stories within those modes of interpretation that are unapologetically black now LA unapologetically unapologetically black LA narrative. And the curation of the narrative is almost is as important as the curation of the landscape and the architecture and the art. There will be about eight to 10 major artists, permanent pieces. 50 plus murals, and many other, you know, ways to engage local artists. It's meant to be a rotating art installation for the 2D work. So at the south end, there'll be a sort of cultural campus, the train stop is right here. So once you get off the train you'll see is an historic fire station will taking over the entire parking lot and creating a cultural center. All of these parks are either taken up space from a local owner, who is giving us access to their property. In some cases it's a parking lot owned by the city, and in other cases it's it's in the public right of way. What's going to connect all of this together for 1.3 miles because it's likely that the parks will be phased. And so you don't want to have, you know, day one when some of this opens you want to be sure that there is a consistent story told that it's evident. And so we're using the rhizome paving from the images of the grass down here. It only goes in one direction. The little leaves will only go in one direction that will run down in the paving the entire length of the boulevard. The shade structures are also part of the connective tissue as are the benches and the banners on the light poles and the storytelling panels on on the shade structures. So those that's the connective tissue, there will be areas for public art and public art project that will be inlaid in the paving at at certain intervals down the boulevard. Now I'm going to go through some of the pocket parks. So as I said, this was this is in front of the shopping center. And so we took a couple of parking stalls, but really didn't take up too much and created a an area for art which I cannot show you any of the art, because it's under wraps at the moment. This would be the landmark, which is where the cultural campus will be. It'll have a 120 foot all beacon lit up engaging an artist at the base. The parking lot will be a park that will be used for many different programs. And that one was across the street from the train station. This pocket park is a play park. We call it the I am park. And so it'll have play mounds. Every available wall will be used to commission an artist to create artwork wherever we can. And along the way, some of these parks are, you know, we use the terms past linger past linger gather. So some parks are meant to rest awhile play summer just passing by. And some are really meant to have full on gatherings of a lot of people programming will be very important. We've commandeered the wall of a high school Crenshaw High School for a student art opportunity. We've created a park across the street from a wall that has been in existence since the 70s. I'll show you that in a minute. So that's the viewing platform for the wall that I'm going to show you right now. This wall, I think you saw it in the when the endeavor went past it. So this wall was created by community members many, many decades ago, and it's been maintained by those local artists on their own. So we're going to create a park just above it, restore it and provide that viewing platform across the street. The last part is what I call the crème de la crème. It's Sankofa Park. And it's on the north end. And it serves as a unique location for community gatherings, and a variety of public events. It'll feature a viewing platform that provides VISTAs overlooking Crenshaw Boulevard and the surrounding area. This is a view of the elevated portion. Sankofa means it's an African bird and some interpretations and the bird can swing his neck around and look behind them. So one interpretation that I like says that the bird, you go back and get was was yours, what was taken. So this is Sankofa Park, the largest of all of them. So when I talk about Sankofa, I mean when I talk about the destination Crenshaw people ask, so how do you know you'll be successful. Right. And, you know, aside from negative gentrification that's we're really warding against. We're really trying to avoid cultural erasure by engaging the community every step away in a very robust way. But if it does become the iconic boulevard for visitors and investment, if if it amplifies the black culture and art, the broader broader audiences, and if it truly is a community asset and gathering space that offers intergenerational engagement and exchange, we will be successful. We will have been successful. The project is starting construction in a couple of months, a couple of weeks. It'll probably be completed in 2022, end of 2022. So that's destination Crenshaw. My other role, you just check time. Talk about practice and how we transform and advance our firms, schools of design and the industry. And I'll show you through the Perkins and Will Lens and some of the efforts and things we have done. And it really is about the difficult conversations, challenging status quo, focusing on cultural competency. And so our basic philosophy or organization is that we have to address every aspect of what we do. Our partnerships, who our consultants are, who our clients are, our talent, our advocacy, be strong, be loud, be consistent, and most importantly is to take action. We have a structure and, you know, there is a leader and there we have a diversity council. But the real work happens with our partners, which is marketing, human resources, public relations and our champions that are represented in each office. So over six, seven years, it's really become, as I said before, a really a weaved in approach and commitment. And many of our strategies come from local studios. We published a white paper with the AIA so you all can access this. And it's, it's a white paper that talks about our structure and our things you might be able to do in your own organization. I think what's really important though is, you know, we can all put together a plan, we can say we want to be more diverse and inclusive. And start hiring, but it's what you do with those that you hire. And it's really being upfront and honest as to where your gaps are. We recognize that we have gaps in designers of color. We recognize that we don't have women in certain key positions and we're very open and honest about where the gaps are year on year and how we're going to fill the gaps. And I think social focusing on social equity and cultural competency and tracking your mission and metrics are key. Again, we implemented all the conversations on race from wide at the local level. It's been actually quite wonderful to hear to hear people's interest and those that are willing to share to share their stories. And so, in order to build this culture and this leadership, it really means changing some behaviors and challenging the status quo. And I have a list on the left, which are some of their quote unquote norms, right, we're just checking the box can find black or brown people and the entourage digital content. And we've always designed with a Eurocentric aesthetic and process. We're saying, turn all of that on its head challenge every single norm and measured against the Jedi lens. Are you being equitable. Are you being representational. Are you mirroring the clients and society that you clients and communities that you work with. I'd like to leave this out here and is, you know, take it home and you think about what norms you might that you think ought to be challenged and changed in order to advance the profession. I think visionary design solutions really needs to start with cultural competency. You know, I talked about my experience at RISD my lived experiences or not represented in my education. And I think that in today's world, if we are not at the highest level of cultural competency, which is where people unconsciously hold culture and high esteem, and use this to guide their lives and work. Then we are, we will continue to do harm. We certainly can't be down at the bottom where we treat everybody the same. My rough opinion, I would say that our profession is somewhere between cultural blindness and cultural pre competence and social equity. I think it's a comprehensive look and understanding of how the barriers and our social makeup social systems. I think again it starts with, where are the inequities. The barriers of these systems, environmental protection, economic development, social justice, they all impact the very notion of sustainability and resiliency of, of community. I think each of these realms we have the opportunity to challenge the status quo and influence our clients, teams and communities to change the course. And just to reiterate the importance of community as design partner. I think not only does it build buy in pride, it can give them a sense of, give the community a sense of belonging, safety and wellness. Just a little bit about our progress. So we've been doing this for eight years. And we've made quite an impact. We have become the industry leader we've established scholarships to build a pipeline, a 12 outreach partnerships with HBCU that we've created internal cultural tools affinity guide, affinity groups. Equity toolkit we've achieved pay, pay equity and gender balance and our race and ethnicity is going up. We are leading the industry, speaking, you know, in organizations and schools like this. But we have to do more. And last summer we made a commitment to double down, particularly in the African American community, and really focus on equity in community and in our work. We can all do this we can all figure out what are we lacking and how might we get there in one step at a time. We have a complete metrics that we use to to both measure the qualitative and quantitative efforts that we do we do it annually. We have recruitment and retention, learning and development, how is our culture of diversity inclusion, our outreach leadership and work life integration. And just quickly over six years, we started out gender, 44 women, 44% women, 56% men we are now 5050. And that is true for 2020 as well. It's true that a staff level is 55% women, and at the principal level it's 26%. So if we continue to focus on making every level, every staff level, more gender balance than in due time, the principal level will be the highest leadership level should be more balanced. We have ethnicity and race. We have increased from 23% to 31%. But we do also know that the different diverse populations are broken down here. And we know that African Americans we have not increased beyond 4%. So that's why the particular focus on on outreach and building the pipeline for that particular demographic. So this is usually my call for action slide. You know, we got to walk the walk. And we have to be action oriented. We have to be active. This cannot be a moment. It must be a movement. I think, you know, incorporate equity into the design process challenges status quo, and align our values with our clients. So here's a question for you. How does your design and practice reflect social justice cultural competency and equity. To answer that question. You might not be addressing some of the pressing needs in our profession in our society. So my vision was solid. As you can see, I didn't have a plan B. We can't ignore the impact we have on people, communities and society. And we have a responsibility to design with these concepts in mind to transform toward a more equitable profession. I have to change the world in my own way. And I challenge each of you to do the same. And John Lewis's words, find a way to get in the way and make good trouble. Thank you. Oh, thank you, Gabriel. Now you can relax. Wonderful presentation. I think full of intention and this super necessary critical position regarding so many issues that concern us and very especially this last question that you were pointing in the in the screen. We have been talking for a while about this, this transformation or how, how can we transform our social and political commitments and responsibilities into design decisions. I think that that's a crucial, crucial point. No, because, of course, we as citizens can be concerned and can be engaged. But finally we are architects, and we have to transform all these preparations into into design and my first question is about the routines of your, of your practice of your office. I think this is Parkinson's will is a big laboratory of 2,500 people. 25 25 25. I'm actually hired 1000 people overnight. And, and of course, I, I, I'm sure that you have some routines in this design process, some particular methods of working incorporation of teamwork mixing, do young and veterans professionals and also how you really because of course we have we have seen in your image how you how you create this community engagement or what are the, the processes. I really like this idea of, of the, the citizens as design partners, how you do that I how do you do, this is a conversation between colleagues know it's how you, right, right. Oh, they're like five questions there but I'll start with the community engagement one because I think that one really. When we did it on destination crunch up and it's depending on the scale of the project right can be, you know, many months, many weeks, whatever but I think for destination crunch up. It was created with them be created the community engagement with them. You know, it was an art and experiential project right so what kind of music should we focus on what kind of art, which artists what's what are the young people doing. There's a lot of assets there so it wasn't hard to get opinion, or desires communicated right so we had several open, open workshops, half day workshops on different. So the first one I think was about bring bring your favorite music, bring your bring representation of the favorite art to get to the stories that they wanted to tell in this experience. We had some design for them to look at it was more little bit but more formal but not you know we rolled out the entire drawing we printed out on this huge thing, and we'd let them market up. We'd let them so you know don't do that you know we'd rather say this or represent this there was just it's like having another team member. We were running in our office every day but we didn't make a step without really engaging them every step of the way. And we started this project in 2017, and they're still engaged so it is morphed into the art curatorial and the advisory council, which we meet with every week because now we're in the process of vetting the art and fine tuning the design so it's not your typical architectural project right. Well this this project is. I really love it very much because in terms of segregation through urban design or architecture. I think the most dramatic chapter is the exclusion of the urban space. There are so many minorities, how the city has canceled and marginalized know the groups of races and blackness and whatever. And I remember a beautiful text by Dorothea from Hunter man who says that the museum is the, the new ritual space of our society after being the theater perhaps in the in the past know. But I think that this is only a three years ago text, but it's already old know because I think the ritual space of this transformation of the society that we are living today is the is the urban space know is the street know so perhaps mixing these two thoughts about the museum as a ritual space and the street as a ritual space. And your project that basically is an open air museum know how do you feel this space will host these rituals of the everyday of all these communities. So I think that this. We also mentioned when we talk about this project we also mentioned this black communities of LA, but it is this this this project is also incredibly useful for the white communities are going to learn a lot. What happens to be in the black community by the black community for the black community. But I think, you know the culture of this community is, you know, when crunch up all of our was vibrant businesses and everything. People had places to gather they had places to run into each other, you know at the barbershop at the cafe. So this is I think meant to supplement the rejuvenation of those businesses to create activity. There's no there's no benches on that street now there's no place to sit and talk is no place to gather. So I think, and this it's a huge, it was a huge musical center for the black community. Major clubs were there old clubs that have been there forever so I think the programming is as important as what as what we build. Right. So, where's the pop up trucks going to be, where's the food truck going to be so I think it's going to enrich the bones that are already there. And it's going to bring back a lot of an I call it, you know the Renaissance of black culture in Los Angeles, and you know it's happening in other cities. The other thing is that given the pandemic rate. What is the new model for a museum. Something like this be it. No, I also did that. This aggregation of the of the museum and this, you know, a banner sense condition. The other important activity that's likely to happen here are gatherings for protests. Black lives matter. political I mean that there's not a large gathering place, other than the middle of the street. Right now so at Senko Park at the cultural campus we've provided opportunities for the gathering that typically happens. No, that's great. And what about the other side of the coin we have talked about public space and museums. Social housing. You, you have some this, you know, work that you did as your thesis but you also were born in Harlem, Harlem is the neighborhood. That I think today in as a new as a new attitude. This at Columbia is looking as a place to learn as a place to understand many current circumstances. And the projects in New York have this incredibly strong expression of segregation know with these buildings even not touching the sidewalk, always behind the fence and not being urban certain way you know. But today there are experiments about know of trying to be. I think with a very good intention social housing, but perhaps not achieving the results of the goals that we would like what do you think about what's your. Well, I think a very simple comment is if we design housing in a vacuum. If we design housing without understanding what the community that's going to live there needs wants, what's going to build them up strengthen them, then it's likely to fail. I think that, you know, penetration of activity around housing, I think is very important, particularly in New York, I don't know how much open space, there are any more I mean one of the old pictures of the housing project had plenty of open space but it was, you know, there was nothing in it. There was just the fence around it so I think activity is is what's exciting to me about housing. And so if it's a wall if it doesn't come if it's not penetrable at the ground floor the ground to floors you know then it's a wall. Yeah. It's a division. Okay. This is, this is important because it's super close to our school and we see it every day. And I think that's architects. The vision of these projects has changed a lot in the last few years not not not not not more perhaps know and and this is important. Let us talk about Perkins and will know how. I think we are not wrong if we say that historically big firms have been characterized by staying out of certain sensitivities but today. Some of them a few of them or perhaps most of them have understood or have assumed that that it is impossible to stay out of this discussions know. And of course you have shown this graphics where finally we can get the conclusion that even it's it's beneficial for the company and it's good for everyone know, but how do you think this big films can have a kind of impact in the discipline can help the, the, the, the profession to, to change and to, and to understand that innovation or experimentation is, is, is really good because these were attitudes. More that we have to say to as more offices, but perhaps with not a very big impact, you know, so it's a big effort, what giant generations are doing to achieve this, this, this goals, but the impact that they, they can, they can produce is not that big but you, but you can you have the this this power, how do you see that no. Well, I think a couple of things one because we're a large firm, we may have some resources and ability to focus on this. And that's why our goal was to share what we do. And not just for Perkins and well, right, because we want to, we want to advance the entire industry. And so I think as a large firm, we have sort of a responsibility to lead the way and share what we can and help those and not believe it or not, it's become a sort of competitive edge amongst our competitors and clients even you know, more and more of our clients are wanting to know what's our position, what's our culture around Jedi, if you will so I don't think there's going to be too many institutional clients, specific clients that won't be talking about this, that won't be requiring a focus on equity representation and such. Good. And we have a couple of questions from the audience related to to this know what one is. So what strategy can we use to promote black architects have to change the key players in firms like yours know thinking that the percentage is still low in many companies or in other companies know how are you. What have you done to get all this black architects incorporated to the to the firm and what do you do to increase every day is this representation. Well, it's, it's an ongoing effort, right, we have to build the pipeline from which to hire from. Right, so that means exposure to architecture youth, right, it means scholarships, it means financial support it's it's a very expensive profession. And so there's plenty of barriers, right. So I think what we're doing we have several scholarships that we've developed. We are partnering with HBC use for recruitment and mentoring and and all of that. So I think those are two really key components, I think our engagement and partnership with Noma National Organization of money architects is very good and and they have a strong, strong connection through their pipeline camp. So I think all of those things is, is to build the pool, and not just to have more black architects, but to, to represent in what we do every day, what different cultures bring to our profession. Right. So I think it starts there and then, you know, folks come to us reach out to us because they see they see them they see themselves in our firm. If they can see themselves, I don't care if it's a woman, or African American, or Latinx, if they can see themselves in your organization then they're going to want to be there. But if they can't, then they're going to, you know, question whether or not it's the right place for them. Yeah, you have been, I think for your, for your years at RISD, and you have been the first in many things, no. The first woman, the first black woman. The first wine, only wine, only wine in the room. Yeah, all that. But also now and in all your, along your professional career, you belong to countless associations, and, and, and groups of tax forces as a public activist, as a public architect, activist or activist architect. And of course, all we admire you for this, no. And this is a wonderful generosity from your side. You have one minute now to convince all the students to, to take, you know, to fight and to take an activist position as architects, not only a citizen, that's of course, we suppose that we are as architects in terms of professionals trying to demonstrate that architecture can be a relevant instrument to achieve equity, diversity, inclusion, justice, all these four words that you repeat constantly. Yeah, well, I convinced them, huh. Okay, I think, I think if we look at what we saw last year in this country, yeah, protest the division. It's caused in many ways by us not addressing some systemic challenges that we've had in this country. And so we can't unsee that. So I think now is the time to reset to talk about it and to come up with some ideas to address them because this ain't rocket science. Right. I mean, we're, we're, we're talking about addressing human need in communities. And I don't care if it's a hospital or a destination crunch, but I don't think we can afford to design in a vacuum. And I think that's been changing for some time, but I think I challenge all the students to, to make a commitment to ask questions to explore to challenge everything. Yeah. You know, we stay in our lane way too much. That's why we have zoning codes that, you know, created redlining or, you know, I mean, it's been there for years and we tell that's just the way it is, not necessarily redlining but what's come after that. Right. So I say get out of your lane. Be nosy. Go find out what the, you know, how's that developer you're working with. They are no negative gentrifier. You want to perpetuate that. So, I don't know if I answered your question. No, we have to fight. There is, there is a question from the audience that is also interesting. It's about the, the, the changes in your company in terms of diversity and inclusion this, this beautiful department that you lead. And you have shown this statistic data showing how your department has no transformative the social map of the, of the company. But what about the company's culture, what, what do you, how do you transform how you understand that this is that statistical data is changing the everyday culture of the right. I would say that I'd say, two years ago, it was clear to me and us that the studios, the offices were embracing it. They were coming up with their own initiatives around the, the, around the diversity umbrella. It's more recently, within the last year, where it's been reflected in our work and in our teams in a, in a, in a very open way, and we're talking about it more. So for me, that was the, that was the, that was the next big thing that I wanted to see happen was conversations about how does this work with our work. Right. Culture is one thing you have to, you know, get the culture and the behaviors and all of that to some degree but I was very anxious. All along, when are we going to be able to talk about these things and to see how they play out in our designs. Moving forward and I think we're seeing it that now we're seeing it by the work that we're being asked to do the commissions that we are being selected for. And even in, you know, just a university project, they want to know how to create a cultural framework for their campus. So, yeah, happening. Yes. Wonderful. I think this is a good closing note. We can, we can leave here. And I have to say, thank you very much. Thank you very much for bringing this hope to architecture to be to be relevant. And to help us so much to have a better living together or we have to live together. Yes. Thank you very much. That's the destination. Thank you. Thank you. Come back soon, please. I'll be back. Okay. Bye. Bye. Bye.