Design Agendas Symposium

Join community leaders, municipal leaders, and scholars in dialogue around topics related to the Design Agendas exhibition. Organized by WashU’s Kemper Art Museum, College of Architecture, and the Office for Socially Engaged Practice, the panels embrace the pluralistic ideas of the exhibition to explore the impact of past and present design agendas through lived, professional, and civic stories, as well as strategies for participatory futures that embed identity, culture, and memory in the built environment.

The symposium aims to be a space to:

• Embrace multiple perspectives including lived, experienced, professional, and civic administrative
  
• Engage the St. Louis community in dialogue on the impact of and vision for the built environment of the St. Louis region
  
• Share the collective depth of research and expertise of the Sam Fox School and community leaders within the St. Louis region
  

The symposium opens with keynote speaker, Toni L. Griffin, professor in practice of urban planning at Harvard University Graduate School of Design on Friday, October 25 at 5:30 p.m.

Program | Saturday, Oct 26

All programming will take place in Weil Hall located on WashU’s Danforth Campus.

8:30–9 am | Check-in + Coffee & snacks

9 am | Municipal Agendas: What’s Happening Now

Hear from representatives who are actively shaping the future of St. Louis agendas while responding to its current status. The panelists will share their views, considerations, and aspirations for the St. Louis region.

11 am | Civic Architecture: Roles and Presence of Public Architecture in St. Louis

An extended conversation to reflect upon a period in which architects and designers, in St. Louis and nationally, responded to the shortcomings of public architectural projects during a time of political instability and economic and racial segregation by redefining their practice and approach to the built environment.

12:30 pm | Lunch (provided with registration)

1:30 pm | Preservations: Centering Culture, Memory, and Identity

Urban renewal dismantled and systematically removed buildings and physical artifacts of vast areas and communities within the St. Louis region (and nationally under the broader urban renewal programs). This panel will expand on the terms and approaches to Preservation, seeking ways to embed Culture, Memory, and Identity as viable preservation criteria in addition to conventional notions of historic preservation that privileges architectural design.

3:30 pm | Participatory Futures: Movements Toward Collective Design Agendas

For current and future design agendas, how can a multiplicity of perspectives be heard? Reflecting on an era in which design agendas have been produced from top-down processes, what are contemporary methods for a participatory future? Can future design agendas move toward a more inclusive process?

5 pm | Closing reflections

Organized by WashU’s Kemper Art Museum, College of Architecture, and the Office for Socially Engaged Practice.