Main Content
Date of lecture: March 5th,2025
Abstract
This presentation introduces community design , which questions top-down decision-making
processes and empowers voiceless communities. We will learn about community design
concepts and methods through the virtual engagement case with a Black neighborhood in North
Carolina that has historically confronted displacement and gentrification.
The site is a 45-acre mall that recently changed hands and closed. The developer conducted
community participation and a survey about how to reuse the site, which resulted in a bubble
diagram. Wary of the developer’s intentions, the neighborhood initiated its own process, but the
realities of COVID-19 made it harder to gather community voices. Therefore, the neighborhoods
formed a seven-neighborhood council and sought a way to envision community objectives in
spatial.
The design team supported the community by leading engagement via publicly accessible
online tools and translating community visions into spatial alternatives. Engagement practices
included setting priorities, connecting goals with physical locations, simulating each member’s
vision using a design game, and synchronized sketch sessions. The alternatives, consolidated
by group decision-making, are being used in negotiations with the developer. These efforts last
for these days. In 2024, the City organized a Planning Committee to develop planning policy
guidance to support the neighborhoods.
Charleston “Dong-Jae” Yi, Ph.D.
Adjunct Faculty, NCSU
Dong-Jae Yi is an adjunct faculty of the Department of Landscape Architecture and
Environmental Planning at North Carolina State University. DJ worked as an architecture
designer in South Korea and moved to Raleigh for a higher degree. He focuses on community
participation and the meaning of space in his work. His designs integrate environmental
elements and community narratives through an equitable and creative participatory process to
create meaningful spaces that are both functional and empowering to communities.