On Sistered Design

THE CODESIGN FIELD LAB: BLACK BELT STUDY FOR THE GREEN NEW DEAL

Euneika: We designed the spring 2021 class to engage in the national conversation about how the framework of the Green New Deal can be translated into actual projects that will live in and help repair the Black Belt region. We examine how these projects should take place, what they look like, who they serve, and how, with a repair mindset, they will roll out. Our inquiry included several questions:

• How are we defining Just Transitions?

• What tools from DDSAE’s framework and the CDFL could be used or adapted to support the development of reparative design?

• How can we make a case for catalytic federal and state policies and infrastructure investments that compensate for centuries of profound injustices?

• How can we amplify the incredible community-driven, movement-based work already happening in the Black Belt region that has brought forth DDSAE and other African American women-led practitioners?

Our collaborative coursework resulted in the creation of story maps, stakeholder-power maps, and future histories focused on reparative infrastructural possibilities in the Black Belt. We also created and developed infrastructures of sistering in order to to codesign the future histories between CDFL students and DDSAE “youth elders.”

Lily Song & Euneika Rogers-Sipp

THE LEAD-UP

Lily: The series of anti-racist conversations in summer 2020 across design schools and institutions were sparked by the convergence of several major events. Many designers were working from home under shelter-in-place mandates. COVID was especially affecting women, essential workers, and communities of color. In the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing by police, mass protests in defense of Black lives took place. We also experienced intense weather events: floods, storms, heat waves, and fires. Under the Trump presidency, a voter organizing initiative led by Black women in Georgia was working toward turning the tideq of the next election.

Euneika: The social justice flashpoints that mobilized the current push for reform and change are simply the latest motivators in the effort to eradicate atrocities against marginalized community members. In our grandparents’ lifetime, African Americans have been denied full American citizenship as well as access to protections against environmental catastrophes. Our collective was asking why it takes a video [of George Floyd’s killing] for many to finally believe injustices were happening and be motivated to action? Social and environmental activists have been making the case for years that a social justice and environmental reckoning was long overdue. It is not enough to say a Black life matters without also acknowledging that that life comes with thoughts and agency beyond just breathing and that our educational experience and voices matter. Unpacking the ongoing impact of the legacy of oppression, and working toward an active vision that could change negative narratives into positive outcomes, is critical to the transformation we seek.

Lily: It became clear that so much of what was happening in the world – the pandemic, accelerating climate vulnerabilities, antiracist reckonings, defeating Trumpism – was tied to the Black Belt. Events of today link back to the founding of plantation capitalism, which economically integrated the globe while ravaging the environment and sowing the racial divisions that continue today. The Black Belt was a place of hope and a cradle of American social movements for abolition, human rights, environmental justice, and voter mobilization. Many of these movements were based on a tradition of Black women leadership.

Among designers and planners, 2020 saw a lot of discussion and excitement about the Green New Deal (also known as the American Jobs Plan), and as the election results came in November and January 2021, it was becoming a legislative possibility. The Black Belt has some of the high- est levels of climate vulnerability. That isn’t just about being situated in coastal regions. It relates to socioeconomic metrics and the government’s capacity to prepare and respond to crisis events. Climate vulnerability offers cautionary lessons about how landmark policies like the historic Homestead Acts and New Deal reinforced white supremacy and ecological decimation through sprawling spatial development. Vibrant social movements and southern innovations like community land trusts and economic collectives are so instructive for designing and planning for just transitions. The HR 40-Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act and the HR 1102-Thrive Agenda were also garnering public attention. They presented opportunities to deepen and extend Green New Deal planning and design in more reparative, just, and sustainable ways.

Euneika: Our project allowed us to connect the dots and offer an interdisciplinary design action research seminar in which emerging designers could gain exposure to designing with intergenerational and societal consequences and responsibilities in mind. At the same time, the seminar fostered co-building research inquiries at the intersections of five key infrastructural sectors: mobility + access, food + fiber, housing + buildings, energy + waste, and water + climate.

Connectivity

Lily: The design action research seminar initially focused on case-making to amplify work of the DDSAE and its network of community and movement-based organizations in the Black Belt region. CoDesign Field Lab enrolled fourteen graduate students, most of whom were in their final semester in urban planning, landscape architecture, architecture, and design studies. The advanced graduate levels of the students not only translated into technical competencies in spatial mapping, visual representation, and historical and document analysis but also familiarity with planning and design. The class also drew students with aligned identities and values — of the fourteen enrolled students, five identified as Black, and eight as Black, Indigenous, or Person of Color (BIPOC).

Spring 2021 was an entirely virtual semester, with students logging into Zoom class from different locations across the United States. Course lectures were pre-recorded and posted for asynchronous viewing, while Zoom class meetings were used for discussions, desk crits, workshops, and other interpersonal activities. Students completed their coursework using online platforms such as Miro, Google Doc ArcGIS, Adobe InDesign, and even WhatsApp.

Euneika: A month into the semester, Destination Design School began to integrate its students into the collaborative learning partnership. Destination Design School students were between 6 and 15 years old and were designated as “youth elders.” The term is adopted from partner group Be Present, Inc., to denote the wisdom, foresight, and leadership of young people within multigenerational families and communities. We assembled a core teaching team that included Scarlett Rendleman, the Destination Design School project manager; Mina Kim, special advisor to the Destination Design School; and two course teaching assistants, Cynthia Deng and Thandi Nyambose. The team began weaving together a network of course mentors, who would share their expertise and gifts with the class through panel presentations, instructional videos, and workshops, as well as desk crits with the student teams. Over a series of weekly coordination meetings among our learning team, we decided that for the final future history exercise, each of the five teams would be joined by the youth elders and selected Black Belt community mentors. Lily: Once we decided that the future histories were going to be co-created in teams of GSD students and Destination Design School youth elders, the teaching team gathered individual biographies from the students, youth elders, teaching team members, and course mentors. We then built infrastructures of sistering to support the codesign process. It was essential to practice care and fellowship at every step.

From the beginning we worked through our differences in curriculum implementation. Together, we planned and adapted the course through weekly coordination meetings. Naisha Bradley, Harvard GSD’s assistant dean for diversity, inclusion, and belonging, greatly supported us through the Racial Equity and Anti-Racism Fund, which allowed us to gain technical assistance and offer our course speakers, mentors, and DDSAE youth elders honoraria. and based on what DDSAE considers culturally relevant design methodologies that we conduct as part of our core curriculum. The Afro-futurist scholar and activist Lonny Avi Brooks works as an advisor to DDSAE. Lonny was brought in to stress the importance of the research and data, and that it be anchored in an engagement process that allowed for African American youth to see themselves outside narratives of projected gloom and doom. As an outcome of their future visioning process, our youth elders used storytelling to narrate their concepts. The result was an exhibition that focuses on a future where they see themselves thriving with their families and surrounding community.

Euneika: To ensure all participants felt supported throughout the experience, Destination Design School youth created a “Guide to Nourish,” to which CDFL students responded with “Youth Elder Engagement Guidelines.” For example, the youth elders requested movement breaks and learning quality over quantity, which we all appreciated and benefited from.

Lily: Our core team structured an agenda and a schedule for joint learning and teamwork between the CDFL students and DDSAE youth elders. DDSAE developed a parallel curriculum for the youth elders, who would meet separately on Saturdays. The youths, along with a few family elders, were assigned to the five teams based on personal interests and alignment. As the blended teams heard from course speakers and mentors, and jointly participated in an Afro-Futuring workshop, they collectively learned about asset-based arts and cultural programming, community wealth building, and shifting power in the Black Belt along with speculative futuring tools.

Euneika: The future visioning process was rooted in the concepts of Afro-futurism

As a next step, CDFL students generated prompts for DDSAE teammates to begin futuring artifacts and scenarios for their respective topic areas. Within a week, the DDSAE youth elders came back with written and drawn responses. These were relayed by the teaching team to the CDFL teammates who incorporated the ideas and inputs into the future histories of mobility + access, food + fiber, housing + buildings, energy + waste, and water + climate for the Black Belt region. CDFL students were instructed to weave in historical sources and multi-faceted data to ensure that future histories were recompensing for historical and systemic injustices and that they were healing forward in creative, joyful, and care-centered ways. Following two more joint teamwork sessions, the CDFL team members

Lily Song & Euneika Rogers-Sipp

presented their future history projects to Euneika and me. We offered feedback and the students made improvements as requested.

Challenges And Outcomes

Lily: It took a lot of coordination for us to all work together across different time zones, busy schedules, and “Zoom fatigue.” Some of the graduate students expressed a desire for deeper collaboration and more time with the youth elders, which was a tough balance given the youth were also in school throughout the day. Another challenge was managing work expectations, as the CDFL was offered as a three-credit seminar and not a six-credit studio. Some students expected a lighter load. While we would have liked to offer it as a studio, the department had decided otherwise.

It was truly impressive how much care the students took to listen, ask questions, and work together in team settings — valuing teammates’ input by thoughtfully integrating and expanding on them. The DDSAE youth elders were wonderfully open, creative, and engaging while exploring topical issues with their teammates through the future history exercise.

On the final day of class, the five teams presented and received feedback on their future histories, with course mentors and DDSAE associates and supporters in attendance. Each presentation opened with an introduction by a DDSAE youth elder. A CDFL student then presented the team’s future history. CDFL and DDSAE teammates were listed as co-authors, and the CDFL students highlighted specific inputs and inspirations from DDSAE youth elders during the future history presentations. The formats for the future history outputs included a zine, graphic novel, poster, design guidelines, and a video.

On Sistered Design

Euneika: The mood was celebratory, and the event ended with participants’ reflections on their codesign experience. it was incredible to see the fruition of complementary creative inputs and how disparate ideas could create a unified whole.

Lily: As an example, we’d like to show the infrastructural vision from the mobility and access team. It’s a poster designed to be easy and fun to read for people of different ages and from different walks of life. Here, leisure and recreation is a right. Twelve-year-old Isis, who was a member of this team, came up with the idea that all people should be able to travel and visit their families and home regions. Her teammates, including Kevin Sipp, DDSL co-founder who is from the Black Belt region, and two graduate students from Harvard, helped her flesh out the idea. The concept includes government travel vouchers and a high-speed rail network. If you read closely, you can see that regional mobility services are provided through electrical vehicle sharing and driver cooperatives. Neighborhood ambassadors and bike repair scouts help people get around actively and safely, while libraries loan everything from books to building and farming tools, digital tablets, and musical instruments.

Other teams produced further future histories: water, housing, energy, and food.

Euneika: For the final farewell, CDFL students created greeting cards and video messages. The DDSL youth elders responded with collaged images and words of appreciation, again relayed by the teaching team via email.

Conclusion

Lily: Beyond course outputs, the most notable accomplishments were the creative connections and codesign processes that we nurtured through this sistered design initiative. These gave a taste of design cultures and methodologies that are grounded, inclusive, mutual, and care-based. During a time of pandemic, anti-racism protests, electoral mobilizations, and severe climate events, the course allowed us to pause and rethink. Euneika’s invitation and our ensuing response allowed me to overcome a great sense of isolation during the pandemic year which also saw anti-Asian scapegoating and violence. Together, we reformulated design pedagogy and education as an expansive reclaiming and celebration of design ingenuity and futurity. The experience affected my

On Sistered Design

approach to other courses, research projects, and applied work. Ultimately, the experience saw me through a career transition as well.

Euneika: The class developed partnerships between people who are committed to equity. It showed how we can bring that focus to all of our design work. It validated a learning approach that affirms grassroots and youth-led inquiry. The collaboration between the CDL and DDSL helped the youth elders understand that they have transformational voices and leadership capabilities in the fields of planning and design. They were in a space where they were able to sit in a classroom with college students and have their thoughts, experiences, and ideas carry the same weight and vision. It was a truly remarkable experience.

Lily Song & Euneika Rogers-Sipp