Design for Dignity 2023

Our 8th annual Design For Dignity conference will serve as an in-person forum to highlight best-practices and pay tribute to the architects, contractors, housing developers, clients, funders, and service providers that are working to deliver housing and supportive services to our communities.

For our upcoming event, we are curating a series of ‘deep dives’ to showcase built projects and successfully implemented programs (and coalitions), from which we can learn more about what’s working well and identify specific areas where we need to improve processes, procedures, and outcomes. This year’s theme is still under discussion.

The 8th annual Design For Dignity conference will feature a series of panel discussions and presentations that highlight successful programs, initiatives, and design innovations that the A/E/C community can replicate, improve upon, and expand.  We’d like to emphasize housing solutions that can inspire the community and educate policy makers, planners, architects, designer, real estate professions, housing advocates, and civic leaders.

As we address the severity of our housing crisis, we’d like to make sure that we highlight what’s working well and instill within us all a sense of optimism (or at least brighten the light at the end of the tunnel to further guide us).

Let’s learn lessons from other places, as well as from our own neighborhoods. To make it safer to speak the truth, and as we navigate the complexity of competing priorities, we need to better understand the overarching cost of success — the overall costs to both the architecture community and to the communities in which we serve.

Let’s join together in a safe and transparent environment where we can speak openly and honestly about the true costs of providing dignity for our houseless friends, neighborhoods and families. Once we can paint a clearer picture of where we are, we can better navigate the complexity of competing needs and priorities, and pave a smoother, faster, more efficient and less costly road to success.

Learning Units: AIA CES: 6 LU|HSW approved