FRI-D10: Unhoused, Underserved: Alternative Approaches to Designing Public Space for Public Good

Friday, November 11, 2022

3:30pm – 4:30pm PT

Location: Moscone Center, Room 205-206

1.00 PDH, LA CES/HSW, AICP, FL

Lead Speaker(s)

Jerome Chou, ASLA

Senior Planning Principal
Kounkuey Design Initiative
Los Angeles, California

Speaker(s)

Jared Edgar McKnight, Assoc. ASLA, Assoc. AIA

Associate + Designer (WRT), Assistant Director, Landscape Justice Initiative (USC)
Wallace Roberts & Todd, LLC (WRT), and University of Southern California (USC)
Los Angeles, California
Rayne Laborde Ruiz

Associate Director
cityLAB UCLA
Santa Monica, California

This session outlines how landscape architects can address homelessness in their regions. Through the lens of case study projects underway in Los Angeles, panelists will outline four categories of action—design-research, engagement, partnerships, and interventions—that landscape architects are well-equipped to take in supporting unhoused residents and their allies.

Learning Outcomes:

Understand how municipal policies and practices have helped criminalize the use of public space, and explore strategies to incorporate this awareness into our practice and projects.
Demonstrate how landscape architects have the agency, experience, and skillsets to address homelessness, through diverse entry points for practitioners - from design-research to design-build projects - to support unhoused communities.
Share examples of “partnerships of difference” - strategic partnerships between designers and organizations that support the unhoused, or provide resources for people experiencing homelessness.
Explore how design interventions that address homelessness can also benefit other users of public spaces, particularly other vulnerable users, through added amenities, programming, staffing, and maintenance.