Resistance in Joyful Design
There’s no question, most of us are feeling the overwhelmingly crushing power of 2020. We are reminded of it every day in our homes—in our news, during our zoom calls, and on our childrens’ faces as they prepare for another day of virtual learning or donning their masks as they head to school.
And we are confronted with it every day outside of our homes—in vacant storefronts, empty restaurants, communities ravaged by COVID, and rallies in our streets mourning the lives of young men and women lost to police violence.
Each of us has asked what the hell we can do, other than to vote. To march. To shop local. To mask up. To keep going. As designers and planners, we’ve thought a lot about what more we can do. As we are quarantined inside, spiraling down the hole of social media and news headlines that further isolate us, many of the public spaces—parks, plazas, sidewalks, and streets—that have historically served as a way to unite us have mainly been left on the backburner. We’ve participated in a number of conversations with other planners and designers about our role in helping mitigate the disastrous impacts of this year. And we’ve been inspired by communities coming together in small acts of resistance, such as painting murals that celebrate cultural heritage in streets and alleyways and constructing pop-up activations that benefit small businesses. Through this process of design and programming, communities are reclaiming these public spaces as the grounds for social action and, in the process, spreading joy to the people that pass by and through them. It is these small but powerful acts that inspire and motivate us to focus on the area that we can have an impact:
the programming of public spaces that uplift communities.
And we are doubling down on this. We stand committed to working with our clients and pro-bono partners in claiming these spaces as agents for community change, economic development, and quite simply, for joy in the coming months and beyond. We believe that the sheer act of designing and programming joyful and authentic places that bring communities together is an act of resistance, hope, and progress that we can all get behind.
