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Home/An Equitable Waterfront: Racial Justice + Social Inclusion

Over the last year, AIANY’s Waterfront Initiative has organized three public dialogues as part of the Future of the NYC Waterfront series, developed in collaboration with the NYC Department of City Planning. The initiative coalesced to gather input from the architecture and design communities for NYC’s Next Comprehensive Waterfront Plan for 2020-2030.

As a result of the physical restrictions of the pandemic, our efforts have been paused since March. Since then, New York City has changed in many ways, as it faces the realities of a global pandemic that disproportionately affects communities of color and a movement for racial equality. In this new city, we must rethink our approach, our assumptions, and our biases. In response, we are revisiting the first three events in a virtual format to discuss what an equitable waterfront could look like, if we focused more holistically on racial justice and social inclusion.

A panel of designers, public officials, developers, and environmental justice advocates will present their experiences working to transform the waterfront in New York City. After the panel, attendees will be divided into moderated breakout rooms, where they will have the opportunity to voice their own experiences and views on designing an equitable waterfront to directly contribute insights to NYC’s Next Comprehensive Waterfront Plan for 2020-2030.

Introduction by:
Michael Marrella, AICP, Deputy Director of Waterfront and Open Space Planning, DCP
Jay Valgora, AIA, Principal, STUDIO V Architecture 

Moderator:
Marquise Stillwell, Founder, Principal at 
Openbox 

Panelists:
Ifeoma Ebo, Director, Office of Neighborhood Strategies, NYC HPD, Board Member, BlackSpace
Justin Moore, Executive Director, NYC Public Design Commission, Board Member, BlackSpace
Carlton Brown, Principal, Direct Invest Development
Judah Asimov, Senior Manager, Planning and Outreach, Rockaway Initiative for Sustainability and Equity (RISE)  

Breakout Room Moderators (Committee Volunteers)
Casie
 Kowalski, Project Manager, Andrea Steele Architecture (Diversity & Inclusion)
Susan Kaplan, AIA, Principal, BuildingWrx (Committee on the Environment)
Justine Shapiro-Kline, Associate, One Architecture & Urbanism (Committee on the Environment)
Jeffrey Dugan, AIA, Principal, Dattner Architects (Transportation & Infrastructure)
Karim Ahmed, Principal, Reform Architecture (Design for Risk and Reconstruction)
Jay Valgora, AIA, Principal, STUDIO V Architecture (Planning and Urban Design)  

The Future of the NYC Waterfront – Program Series
This is the third program in a series of forums on the future of the NYC waterfront planned through 2020 to conduct outreach to inform the NYC Comprehensive Waterfront Plan: Vision 2030 through the Waterfront Management Advisory Board. Through a partnership between the AIANY Planning and Urban Design Committee, the Committee on the Environment, the Design for Risk and Reconstruction Committee, the Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, this Waterfront Taskforce Initiative is critical to providing a platform for architects and design experts in New York City to express their points of view and experience working on the city’s waterfront.

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