This program is being offered on Zoom. You must attend the full session to get AIA credit. If you leave the Zoom meeting early, no credit will be reported. 

Join Hoerr Schaudt for this program. Architects and landscape architects are increasingly called to design public environments that support access, equity, and belonging. This session explores how inclusive design can function as a generative framework—shaping circulation, programming, sensory experience, and architectural relationships—rather than a set of requirements applied late in the process.

Through two distinct public projects—Exploration Place in Wichita, Kansas, and East Side Park in Birmingham, Alabama—the presentation examines how inclusive thinking adapts across scale, typology, and community context. Exploration Place, a large-scale riverfront playscape and civic destination adjacent to a Moshe Safdie–designed museum, demonstrates how inclusive design can act as a cultural and economic catalyst for an entire city. East Side Park, a more grassroots and ecologically driven neighborhood park, illustrates how inclusive principles can guide intimate spatial moments, community stewardship, and the integration of a new pavilion, restrooms, and outdoor learning spaces that support broader social and environmental goals.

Both projects reveal how early collaboration with community partners, non-profits, and interdisciplinary teams informs design decisions that support comfort, dignity, and choice over time. The session highlights transferable strategies that help architects evaluate projects not only by access, but by experience—asking how people arrive, engage, and remain in a place. The discussion emphasizes practical approaches architects can integrate into everyday practice to strengthen health, safety, welfare, and long-term public value.

This program is worth 1 HSW.  

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