Community Design Centres

Community consciousness in many low-income neighbourhoods emerged in the early 1960s. Direct involvement of the public in the definition of their physical environment and an increased sense of social [Page 138]responsibility constituted a new movement. Following this movement, community design centres (CDCs), aiming to offer design and planning services to enable the poor to define and implement their own planning goals, were established in the USA. Community design is based on the recognition that professional technical knowledge is often inadequate in the resolution of design and planning problems. Initially, community design was based on the belief that people affected by design and planning decisions should be involved in the process of making those decisions.

Influenced by Paul Davidoff's advocacy model of intervention, many design and planning professionals rejected traditional practice. Instead, they fought against urban redevelopment, advocated for the rights of poor citizens and developed methods of citizen participation.

Federal programmes of the 1960s such as the Community Action Program and Model Cities encouraged the participation of citizens in improvement programmes. With these programmes, people outside the professions were allowed to make decisions about planning and financing. Citizens were given the right to participate in planning and implementation processes through grants and technical assistance.

The experiences provided by the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act in community action agencies and the stimulus of the Office of Neighborhood Development (part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development) strategically enhanced the economic development role of grass-roots organizations and the usefulness of professional advocacy networks such as the Association for Community Design. CDCs became the staging ground for professionals to represent the interests of disenfranchised community groups. The social momentum of the Civil Rights Act and the innovations of the Ford Foundation's Gray Areas Program were rapidly building a framework for change throughout the nation. Similar efforts took place in the UK that were referred to as Community Architecture. Other grass-roots activities were also occurring in Europe.

CDCs are dedicated to providing planning, architecture and development services unavailable to emerging civic organizations or established community-based development corporations. Design centre organizational structures range from architect-led non-profit corporations to university service learning programmes, to private practices and American Institute of Architects and community–sponsored volunteer programmes. Support for design centres came from Community Development Block Grants and other sources of funding to facilitate volunteerism. Services provided by most CDCs then and now have included the following:

• Comprehensive, participatory and strategic planning
• Technical assistance in the selection and financing of development projects
• Advocacy and support for the acquisition and management of housing and community facilities

The 1960s and early 1970s was a time of great organizational flourishing. Organized in 1963, the Architectural Renewal Committee in Harlem opposed a proposed freeway in Upper Manhattan. In Cleveland, Architecture-Research-Construction remodelled hospital wards, community-based treatment centres and group homes, working with patients, staff and administrators in a participatory design process. In Tucson, the design centre removed over 100 pit privies from barrio homes and replaced them with prefabricated bathroom units. Founded in 1973, Asian Neighborhood Design has a long history of work on issues in San Francisco's Chinatown. Today, it is a full-service professional planning and architectural service, dedicated to housing and community development throughout the region, with an annual operating budget of about $4 million. In Salt Lake City, ASSIST, Inc. continues to provide accessibility design services, seeing more than 100 projects through construction each year. Architects, landscape architects and planners, working as volunteers and paid staff in CDCs, complete hundreds of similar projects annually.

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