Design For America WashU

Jul 2

How might we…

reimagine the values and infrastructure of DFA WashU to facilitate more meaningful projects and partnerships?

Centering Equity in Student Design

We want WashU DFA teams to have the guidance they need to practice equitable design.

OVERVIEW

Through feedback from both partners and studio, it has become clear that WashU DFA, as it currently exists, didn’t effectively carry out its mission to provide students with a design education and our local partners with support to create social impact/systemic change. I worked with the current studio leadership to implement more equitable design practices and provide more guidance for members on how to approach this work.

PROJECT OUTPUTS

Set of co-created studio values
Pilot for internal value-based projects
Project management and mentor system
New leadership structure
Six prototypes for changes to WashU infrastructure

TIMEFRAME

June 2020 - January 2021 (8 months)

PARTNER

WashU Design For America (DFA)

TEAM

Jane Gormley, Laura Judd, and Isabella Xie - WashU DFA Leadership

Arianna Goldman, Jane Gormley, Shanthini Baskar, Victor Khalil, Sydney Medford, and Laura Judd - Summer Action Committee

My Roles

I organized the conversations around equity and design that allowed the studio to align behind a new set of values. The project structure and design resources that I created helped six teams looking to operationalize these values turn the design research process on themselves and our studio to create prototypes for new internal infrastructure.

Design Journey

I guided WashU DFA in both aligning around and acting on a strong set of values.

Identifying and Centering Values

The murder of George Floyd left our studio reflecting on the role of white supremacy in our work. Through a series of summer workshops, we decided that we needed to change our practice and rethink the values underlying it.

Supporting Teams in Embracing Ambiguity

As teams began to research ways to operationalize each value, I worked with studio leadership to build a check-in system and resource list. These supports provided a structure for studio members to learn the tools of design while working independently.

Implementing Changes

My team collaborated with the rest of studio to implement each concept. We passed initial prototypes onto new leadership and developed tools and resources for use in the spring semester.

Testimony

“The structure of this project allowed for members to thoughtfully and logically move through the most important motions of design while simultaneously upholding principle values such as equity and justice.”
- Participant Feedback Form Response