Spatial Justice and Social Equity Action Plan
Evolving Document
Originally drafted June 9, 2020
Last updated SEPTEMBER 19, 2022
Introduction
This document is a living, mindfully incomplete draft that is being developed and confirmed with input from our entire office. The language and content are a work in progress and will be tested and strengthened with time.
As we are moved and inspired by the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests around America and the world, this is an updated plan for our collective action, both immediate and long-term. A number of efforts are already underway at GGN. This plan builds significant opportunities for lasting change and new efforts in support of a practice and a work community that are more racially equitable, socially inclusive, and impactful.
These actions are currently summarized in six sections, from most internal (i.e. whom we are and how we work together) to most outward (i.e. external communications about our work and issues that matter to us):
Office Culture Action
Hiring and Employment Action
Research and Academic Action
Project Action
Financial Action
Communication Action
1. Office Culture Action
As a group of people working together, we are actively working on collective self-education to support the growth of our office community. There are a number of ways we have been doing this over recent years, and there are many opportunities to expand upon these efforts.
1.a. Spatial Justice and Social Equity (SJSE) Work Group – This work group welcomes people from all levels of experience, roles, and responsibilities in the office. The work group advises work on this action plan for internal and external expression, sets up or updates office systems (such as project design reviews) to specifically integrate services to underserved, minority, and vulnerable users, and advises on hiring and recruiting methods for jobs and internship opportunities.
[Update June 2022] GGN is currently working with Crux consortium to provide a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion assessment, training, and ongoing examination of this Action Plan and implementation. In addition to our SJSE Action Plan Work Group, we have formed an Advisory Group that meets regularly with Crux. Crux is also leading workshops with our full office.
[Update September 2022]
1.a.i. Spatial Justice and Social Equity Residency - GGN is sponsoring a yearlong Spatial Justice and Social Equity (SJSE) Residency with Paul Bauknight, founder of the Center for Transformative Urban Design to amplify opportunities to transform cities, neighborhoods, and the public realm by empowering communities to rethink urban design systems and policies so that we can create genuinely equitable community development. We see our partnership with Paul Bauknight as a catalyst for more fully integrating our Spatial Justice and Social Equity initiatives into all aspects of our firm. Our work with Paul will allow us to test important ideas, connect with more communities, and share our progress and process with the field.
1.b. Everyone Discussions – We hold a bi-weekly internal discussion series with readings and other shared materials to continue to educate ourselves and have a sustained dialogue about pressing issues and how they relate to our work. Discussion hosts rotate depending on topic and interest. More external speakers and diverse personal perspectives will continue to be added.
1.b.i. Internal/Personal Topics Recognizing our collective diversity and wide range of life experiences, we will add more personal conversations into these discussions. This is also an opportunity to build an internal atmosphere at GGN of trust and safety to share individual stories and diverse personal perspectives, including racial identity and experience. Starting with better supporting the openness, within GGN, of diverse personal identities and stories, we can hopefully better leverage our collective ability to trust and empower the sharing of stories and empathy with all people for whom we design space. We can also become a better workplace for people who experience life as BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and often under-represented perspectives.
[Update June 2022] In continuing our efforts to promote inclusiveness and vulnerability within our workplace, we began a storytelling series about “A Favorite Landscape,” with presentations from several GGNers.
1.b.ii. External Topics We are continuing to bring diverse, outside readings and voices into the Everyone Meeting Discussions that challenge and stimulate our collective thinking as empathetic and creative designers of the built environment. We specifically endeavor to include more voices of Color and underrepresented identities into these readings and topics. We will bring more outside speakers and conversation participants into these discussions.
[Update May 2021] To date, GGN has read and discussed work by the following thinkers: Tiffany Lethabo King, Linda Peake & Eric Sheppard, Margaret Kovach, Mindy Fullilove, Robin Dripps, Craig Wilkins, Marshall Berman, Kofi Boone, Elizabeth Meyer, JB Jackson, bell hooks, Richard Sennett, and Jenny Odell.
On Monday May 17, 2021 as part of our ongoing education as an office, we invited our first external guest speaker to join us virtually: Brandie MacDonald (she/her) is the Director of Decolonizing Initiatives at the Museum of Us (formally the Museum of Man) in San Diego. The Museum’s decolonizing initiatives are guided by Dr. Amy Lonetree’s work and focused on:
Truth telling and accountability
Rethinking ownership
Organizational culture shift supported by systems and policy
Indigenous representation.
We followed this up with an internal discussion the following week on the meanings of settler-colonial harm and decolonization, and how working through these critical lenses can inform individual and collective perspectives on our work and roles in the field of Landscape Architecture.
[Update June 2022] Speakers included Vaughn Rinner ‘s presentation about the ASLA Climate Action Plan, including their focus on equity.
1.c. Diversified Feedback Formats Acknowledging feedback that some people feel most comfortable contributing opinions outside of all-office forums and/or contacting office leaders, we will periodically seek ideas and feedback via writing, remote exercises, or an all-office survey.
1.d. Learning by Example GGN Case Studies – We have launched an internal dialogue series of lessons we are learning from individual GGN projects – and work by others – where issues of spatial justice and elevating narratives of People of Color are central to the design process. These are intended to build a collective understanding of a different way of working and designing that is about the process of discovering the real ground and stories together Experience, methods, and challenges in finding and elevating the authentic stories of overlooked, oppressed, and underserved communities will continue to be shared. Case studies of our work will include: India Basin Shoreline Park & 900 Innes Ave, National Museum of African American History and Culture, John Treviño Jr. Metropolitan Park Master Plan, Burke Museum, pro bono work with Seattle Public Schools, pro bono Work on the Block Project, and our work with the University of Washington Architectural Research Consortium. Outside case study presentations to be coordinated.
[Update May 2021] Case studies discussed include: India Basin Shoreline Park & 900 Innes Ave, John Treviño Jr. Metropolitan Park Master Plan, Burke Museum, The Falls Initiative, Yakima Central Plaza, REI Headquarters and the Spring District Park, and our work with the University of Washington Architectural Research Consortium.
2. Hiring and Employment Action
2.a. Hiring - We will improve upon our longtime efforts to recruit - and train - people of diverse backgrounds, race, identities, and life experiences in the office. A workgroup will convene to define specific hiring resources and recruitment programs to ensure that we are “looking in the right places” for prospective employees from the Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and LGBTQ+ communities to improve the racial diversity and representation within our group at GGN.
2.b. Internships - We have updated internship positions and requirements so that internships and potential future employees of GGN will attract and integrate into our office people who come from a more diverse educational, personal, racial, and demographic background.
[Update June 2022] For our Summer 2022 Internship Program, we created a housing and travel stipend to help reduce financial barriers that would prevent students from interning with us.
2.c. HBCU Connections - We are forging new and stronger connections with colleges and programs that prioritize education for Black people and People of Color. We can expand the ways of designing and who is designing the cities, neighborhoods, and places of the future by directly supporting an expanded role for these institutions.
[Update May 2021] Internship match program with North Carolina A&T
2.d. Youth Experiences and Employment: Apprenticeships and Part-Time Jobs - Including more People of Color in the landscape architecture profession starts with inviting and supporting more young People of Color and diverse identities to discover and train into landscape architecture. We would like to provide direct, early employment and early experience opportunities for Black youth, young adults, and other underserved Youth of Color in the communities of Seattle and DC. This program would require an extra investment of time from all employees of GGN.
The following early-welcome and training programs are being researched and evaluated and compared by the office for impact potential and functional considerations.
2.d.i. After school/part time office job for high school student or recent graduate. A range of employment opportunities can be found within our offices.
2.d.ii. Horticultural monitoring job for high school or recent graduate (summer). Introductory training would be integrated for reading and annotating plans, identifying plants, and taking and issuing field reports.
2.d.iii. Design apprenticeship for sophomore-through-senior and recently graduated high school students. A design-process oriented experience which would include more observation and dialogue along with introductory training to reading and drawing/drafting plans and diagrams.
3. Research and Academic Action
3.a. UW ARC - Several months ago GGN began participating in the UW Architectural Research Consortium (ARC) to collaborate with a PhD student on a long-term research project focused on public space design and process for communities in the margin. The project is connected to recent work with India Basin Shoreline Park and John Treviño Jr. Metropolitan Park and will directly engage a number of ongoing projects as well as a broader case study review and theoretical development. GGN is making a significant investment to participate in the program and support this 9-month research effort. The PhD student is working as a research intern at GGN over the summer. Potential outcomes or extensions of this effort include publications and other materials available to universities and allied professions to help advance this topic.
[Update April 2021] GGN presented three possible research topics to ARC for the 2021-2022 academic year, and we are currently waiting to hear back about potential matches.
[Update June 2022] Seyyada Burney presented her work around equity practices in nurseries three times during the year.
3.b. Lectures, Reviews, and Writing - University lectures, symposia, and other speaking opportunities allow us to develop our ideas on subjects outside of typical project deliverables and share ideas with a broader audience, including students.
3.b.i. Potential opportunities to expand the impacts of these efforts:
3.b.i.1. Develop relationships with HBCU programs to lecture, support studio reviews, and develop relationships with potential intern and hiring applicants
3.b.i.2. Seek out conferences or symposia on aligned topics
3.b.i.3. Continue to expand student group visits hosted in our offices
4. Project Action
4.a. Contracts and Collaborations - As with our outreach for hiring, we will improve outreach methods and goals for BIPOC and diversity in our contract teams, subconsultants, and collaborators on our projects. This has been an ongoing effort, and we are grateful to the new directories and services that are making small BIPOC businesses more visible, including BIPOC STUDIOS. We will collect and vet new resources like these for potential long-term use. Note that in DC there is a firm that lists as “looking for collaborations.” We will add to our business development plans an outreach and contact plan to get to know some of these potential collaborators that can deepen and enliven our work and whom it serves.
[June 2022] We created a specific role in the office, Community Partnerships Lead, that examines opportunities to collaborate/partner with BIPOC owned firms and BIPOC professionals in the pursuit of doing more community impact work in the office.
4.b. Vendors and products we specify - Though we are not retailers, we do have an impact on the economy and on business support by what products we specify, contract opportunities (i.e.art) we open up in our projects etc.to BIPOC and other diverse firms and makers. The 15% project is an interesting idea that we should look at folding in to our targets, including other social, local, and environmental/carbon targets and goals for our materials and products specified. We rarely meet our targets in these various categories due to lack of availability for budgets on our public and nonprofit projects in particular, but we can still make ourselves much more impactful by promoting the effort and measurement in this area and increasing the support our projects provide.
4.c. Project Design Services
4.c.i There are a number of projects within the office where the mission and community impacts justify work exceeding fees. We support these efforts because we believe that solving the problems that need to be solved in each design and community are central to all of us who work at GGN, to the purpose of our work as an office, and are not always accurately anticipated in terms of design time allowances before beginning the work.
4.c.ii. There are many project types within the office and many different kinds of clients. There are times when a project that is pursued becomes controversial due to the nature of the site, the client, or potential negative impacts on communities or the environment. While these aspects of every project pursued are weighed and discussed, we acknowledge that unfolding circumstances or unanticipated points of view have value. For this reason, we would like to establish a clear line of communication and response when questions are raised about a project within the office:
4.c.ii.1. If a project is felt to be incongruent with an individual’s ethics and/or the ethos of our firm, we believe this merits a voluntary all-office discussion about the pros and cons of the project, the initial reasons for pursuing, and the potential impacts of not working on the project. This will not guarantee that a project will be stopped for any objection raised, but we will openly discuss and earnestly integrate this discussion into any decisions made.
4.d. Design Review and Design Critters - We will continue to increase specific discussion and examination of each design’s full potential to meet spatial equity goals, concepts, and performance. We currently request a summary Spatial Justice and Social Equity statement from project teams to be updated at the start of each project phase. With this statement in hand, each project will be reviewed and discussed in an enhancement work session (similar to Design Critters method of “working together”) by a rotating subset of members of the Spatial Justice and Social Equity Work Group.
[Updated June 22] We have expanded our internal Design Critter review process to include more diverse voices.
4.e. Pro-Bono Projects
4.e.i. Our office community has supported an ongoing series of pro-bono design and support efforts including work with Seattle Public Schools, the Growing Vine Street project, BLOCK project, and others, along with the efforts of individuals on boards and committees such as the Seattle Greenways Network, Seattle Design Commission, Seattle Design Review Board, and the Landscape Architecture Foundation.
4.e.ii.. This donation of time and support of individual volunteering should continue. A plan for clarifying individual participation in partner organizations or other pro-bono efforts is in development.
4.e.iii. We can expand awareness within our office and beyond regarding the range of these efforts and welcome ideas for new opportunities.
5. Financial Action
Our work is motivated by more than financial profits. We pursue projects to collaborate with designers we value, advance awareness and action around important issues and build relationships with places and communities around the world. There are multiple ways that we contribute financially to these efforts as an office directly and indirectly.
5.a. Existing recurring donations and contributions to consider while budgeting our immediate response donation:
5.a.i. UW ARC (see details above)
5.a.ii. Lurie Garden-GGN Public Urban Horticulture Apprenticeship
5.a.iii. Burke Museum
5.a iv..Landscape Architecture Foundation
5.a.v. UW Landscape Architecture Teaching and Lecture Support
5.a.vi. Oxbow Farm & Conservation Center
[Updated June 2022] We now have a matching fund for employee giving and an engagement process for selecting participating non-profit organizations.
5b. Immediate response donation to express solidarity and alliance with current protests and movement:
This immediate financial contribution will expressly respond to the moment and join with the call for action to elevate Black-led organizations and community advocates. We are also particularly interested in making an impact on “both coasts” to reflect our social geography as an office community.
Our key areas for distributing this contribution are currently strategized as deepening the impact of (and access to) our existing work and deepening our long-term membership and commitment in communities via donations to impactful organizations and tireless community leaders whom do not necessarily have a national fundraising stage or robust fundraising mechanism (as, for example, some major museums may have).
We reviewed and gathered consensus and the following donations were made immediately:
1. APRI San Francisco
2. City Kids Wilderness Project
GGN opened up the base donation at $10,000 which was added to by individual team members at their private discretion to contribute an additional $9,390 for a collective donation of $19,390. This allowed us to communally support these two organizations at $9,695 each.
[Update December 2020] GGN made additional holiday donations to APRISF and City Kids Wilderness Project in appreciation of our Clients and collaborators.
[Update May 2021] The SJSE work group is continuing discussions around GGN’s financial giving strategy for scholarships and other national advocacy efforts.
6. Communication Action
We can better use our communication platforms and visibility in the profession to share our longtime mission-driven work and the way our strong social and ecological values and deep empathy drive creative design solutions. Humbly sharing more of this history and current work would help GGN to more effectively inspire positive change and discussion in our profession and in allied professions.
6.a. Social Media
6.a.i. Learning by Example Case Studies - The internal case studies and lessons we are learning together will be shared on Instagram after internal discussion and after a Summary Statement of Specific Actions. The Learning by Example case studies will review and share lessons from our equity driven projects, pro-bono efforts, research projects, and others that we have heard we should more proactively share with our community as imperfect yet useful examples, inspiration, and case studies to collectively build upon as a profession.
6b. Community Events
As the largest landscape architecture firm in Seattle and with a centrally located office space in downtown, GGN can host more community conversations and forums on social equity in landscape (and other mission aligned issues) to prompt dialogue and collective progress among our peer community. We can provide a spatial forum, backed by our firm’s physical presence and support, for partners and employees who are working to address inequity and to elevate Black people. In an ever-more expensive city our physical space is an invaluable resource to non-profit groups needing a central place to meet or share their ideas. Through our employees we can clearly offer use of our facility to mission aligned groups and non-profits as schedule permits.
[Update February 2021] GGN BIPOC Portfolio Review: This effort came out of a desire for GGN to be more inclusive and proactive in identifying ways and opportunities to increase representation of BIPOC students and professionals in Landscape Architecture. GGN organizers set up individual and group portfolio review times for students of underrepresented communities to offer experience, skills, and advice to students about the future of our profession.
[Update June 2022] We held another GGN BIPOC Portfolio Review in February 2022 and have created the framework to make this a bi-annual event.