Rooted in the ideological foundation that everyone regardless of race, gender or class should have access to the expertise of architects, community design is an architectural paradigm devised to respond to the criticism that the profession has indeed forgotten its duty to the public and the community design center is the primary infrastructure that facilitates the profession’s response.

At their heart, community design centers are critical practices that intentionally open up and address questions of social responsibility and ethical aesthetics for the profession. Alarmed by what we see as the dangerous and unnecessary marginalization of architecture in the public eye, we propose an unique set of essays, images and practical models that direct the conversation about the value of architecture away from its visual aesthetics and towards its visible ethics.

Community design centers are the epitome of what we are defining as activist architecture – a way of perceiving, teaching and practicing that derives from, is relevant to, and vigorously engages the community in which the architecture is placed. It is a process of design in which communal sustainability and environmental equity influence the physical growth and economic direction of the built environment; an idea about practice that redefines not only architecture and architect, but also who is actually worthy of the discipline’s enormous gifts/abilities to make their lives better.

Activist Architecture: Philosophy & Practice of the Community Design Center is a philosophical, historical and practical guide to establishing, operating and growing a community design center; both a “why-to” and “how-to” guide for establishing a community design center in all of its various forms.