together with lulu mickelson, We were invited as one of three architect teams to conduct a series of community engagement events around two new affordable housing projects in san ysidro, california. This process built upon local work to incubate a new community land trust which will ultimately manage the rent-to-own project. We designed and facilitated two community events, leading up to a final presentation where community members were invited to respond to the initial design proposals.
Our first event with nearly 50 community members focused on big picture goals for the community, personal reflections on the meaning of “home,” and collective priority setting at the scale of the unit, the communal building, and the larger neighborhood.
The second event was a hands-on participatory design workshop with the community land trust members. We worked with them to review the results from the first event and develop massing models that responded to community priorities. Those massing studies directly translated into our design proposals, which can be viewed in more detail here.
We designed the final presentation format to also allow for additional community feedback on specific unit plans and site amenities. All events were designed and facilitated in Spanish, with support from Fatima Juarez.