Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Search this
Type:
Lectures
YouTube Videos
Uploaded:
2023-05-26T16:07:20.000Z
Views:
591
Video Title:
Designing Gender Inclusive Spaces
Description:
How does design impact gendered experience? Or rather, how does gendered experience impact design? Historically, design has neglected the needs of women, girls, transgender people, and gender minorities. In recent years, designers have worked to change gender-biased systems in their practice. View a conversation with architects and urban designers as they consider the role that design plays in creating safe and inclusive spaces for all genders. This panel was held in conjunction with Cooper Hewitt’s Designing Peace exhibition. In context of their work, panelists discuss the obligation that architects and designers have in protecting the public’s health, welfare, and safety. Lori Brown speaks on safe access to abortion clinics. Seb Choe discusses the equitable design of public restrooms. Chelina Odbert shares about gender-inclusive urban planning. Cooper Hewitt curator Cynthia E. Smith moderates the discussion and audience Q&A. SPEAKERS Lori Brown’s (she/her) creative practice examines the relationships between architecture and social justice with an emphasis on gender and its impact on spatial relationships. She is the author of Contested Spaces: Abortion Clinics, Women’s Shelters and Hospitals, the editor of Feminist Practices: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Women in Architecture and the forthcoming Bloomsbury Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture, 1960-2015 co-edited with Dr. Karen Burns. She co-founded and leads ArchiteXX, a gender equity in architecture organization in New York City. Brown is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a 2021 Architectural League of New York Emerging Voices recipient. She is a Professor at the School of Architecture at Syracuse University and a registered architect in New York state. Seb Choe (they/them) is an architectural activist and community organizer based in New York and Hawai’i. Choe is Associate Director of JSA/MIXdesign, an architecture studio and inclusive design consultancy that works to make everyday building types, including restrooms, university campuses, and art museums, accessible and welcoming to people of different ages, cultures, disabilities, genders, and religions. Choe is a director with Friends of Gadsden Creek, an environmental justice campaign based in Charleston, and regularly works as an educator with marginalized youth across the country. Choe’s creative practice, which spans music, film, and writing, has been featured in The New York Times, 99% Invisible, PIN-UP Magazine, and the 2021 Venice Biennale. Choe holds a B.A in Architecture from Columbia University. Chelina Odbert (she/her) believes in the power of community-engaged design to advance racial, environmental, and economic equity in neighborhoods and cities. As Founding Principal and Chief Executive Officer of National Design Award-winning firm Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI), she aims to bring good design to under-resourced communities and connects localized design interventions to large-scale policy change. Recognized by the Aspen Institute, Ashoka Changemakers, and Van Alen Institute, she has also been named an Emerging Voice by The Architectural League of New York and a Knight Foundation Public Space Fellow. Odbert has held teaching appointments at Harvard Graduate School of Design and UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. She earned a BA from Claremont McKenna College and a Master of Urban Planning from Harvard University. Cynthia E. Smith (Moderator) (she/her) serves as Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s Curator of Socially Responsible Design organizing an exhibition and publication series on humanitarian-focused design. She integrates her training as an industrial designer with her advocacy on human rights and social justice issues, serves on international design juries, and lectures widely on socially responsible design. Her most recent exhibition Designing Peace is on view in New York until August 2023.
