Statements
Mission
The Civic Design Center is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that works with residents, organizations, and municipalities to advocate for civic design visions and actionable change in communities to improve quality of life for all.
We do this through community engagement and design that strives to actualize our Guiding Principles for Civic Design. We believe that the fields of architecture, community planning, and development should be more accessible and inclusive of the wider population. Starting from youth, people deserve to believe that they have the power to shape their communities, and we are working on actualizing that power to be representative of not only the people, but also the history and culture of a place. It takes work to envision civic design to be socially conscious and equitable, but it takes dedication, strong partnerships, and community pride to shape the outcome of design.
Background
In 1995, a group of Nashvillians, concerned about the negative effects of haphazard growth, began the work of organizing a platform for educating the community about good design practices and how they can translate to a beautiful and functional Nashville. With this in mind, the group created the Urban Design Forum, a regular event where the initial goal was to simply educate. The group knew that education was not enough to change Nashville's haphazard trajectory, therefore the long-term goal was to establish a formal organization that could chart a future for the city's built environment. In December 2000, Mayor Bill Purcell announced the establishment of the Nashville Civic Design Center. The Design Center opened its doors in June 2001 and began its involvement at some level in nearly every civic and development decision affecting Nashville's urban core. Following several years of community engagement through discussion, workshops and mapping, the Design Center published The Plan of Nashville: Avenues to a Great City in 2005. Together, the community established 10 Principles that still guide the vision of the organization today.
In nearly 20 years, the Design Center has published two additional books: Moving Tennessee Forward: Models for Connecting Communities (2012) focused on innovative transportation and land use strategies, and Shaping the Healthy Community: The Nashville Plan (2016), which focused on public health and the built environment. The organization has also produced dozens of inspiring publications on topics such as affordable housing, transit-oriented development, reclaiming alleyways as public space, retrofitting corridors, and more.
The 10 Principles of the Plan of Nashville were relaunched in 2021 as the Guiding Principles for Civic Design. They evolved to include areas of impact that are more important to Nashville's growth today than they were two decades prior. In the new evolution, the goals of the Principles were adjusted to reflect Socially Conscious Design Principles, which are rooted in equity and better reflect truly "civic" design. All of the projects that come out of the Design Studio are rooted in one or more of the Guiding Principles, reflecting the complex ecosystem of urban planning.
Impact
The Civic Design Center has been engaging youth in Nashville's city planning since we were founded in 2001. Youth were included in the Plan of Nashville process from the beginning, and the value was clear to raise youth voices that may advocate for their unique perspectives in how Nashville grows and develops. The Design Center has two youth programs that reflect this commitment. Design Your Neighborhood centers around a project-based middle school curriculum that emphasizes teaching critical local issues, like transportation and affordable housing. They learn to find their voice and are exposed to career paths that shape our communities. Thousands of middle schoolers in Davidson County have gone through a Design Your Neighborhood course and it is now expanding to Hamilton County in partnership with the Chattanooga Design Studio.
Our Nashville Youth Design Team is an extracurricular high school internship program that builds on skills learned from the Design Your Neighborhood curriculum. The program provides the next step for civic-oriented young people to make change in their communities. Each Summer, they have a 4-week intensive where the interns use data collected from their peers to envision design solutions specifically for youth. In October 2021, the interns created the first tactical urbanism crosswalk intervention at one of the deadliest intersections on a state road. The response was so impressive that the Tennessee Department of Transportation announced funding for a Complete Streets project spurred by their efforts. It showed the public that youth voices can be powerful.
The Design Center organizes upwards of 25 programs and events annually with over 5,000 participants. These include a variety of community-based events that are always open to the public: Urban Design Forums, PechaKucha Nights, PARK(ing) Day, Civic Tours, and Annual Celebrations.
Needs
Our most pressing needs are related to funding that will support our rapidly expanding and growing programs such as the Design Your Neighborhood program and the Nashville Youth Design Team internship program. These youth are living out our mission by creating actionable change in their communities through quick-build traffic calming interventions.
CEO Statement
This past fiscal year, 2022-2023, the Civic Design Center put a major focus on 3 critical issues identified by our supporters-community involvement, transportation, and housing. These are outlined in our Guiding Principles and together they represent the holistic approach we must take in the evolution of our communities. It doesn't matter how affordable your housing is if you can only afford to live beyond the reach of dependable transportation. These things must work in tandem.
For the first time ever, we set a theme for our major public space advocacy event, PARK(ing) Day. The theme was "Housing as a Public Right," and we partnered with a dozen housing and homelessness experts to consult with the participants. The goal was to bring more awareness about the issue in an approachable and effective way right in Downtown Nashville where nearly 5000 people passed by the parklet installations.
Our Annual Celebration brought in Ernest Brown, of YIMBY (Yes! In My Backyard) Action, as our keynote speaker to talk about housing supply advocacy as a way to combat the lack of affordable housing. We invited Council Member Colby Sledge and Centric Architecture Principal, Gina Emmanuel, to join the panel and discuss strategies for policy and community engagement that would incentivize more housing.
Meanwhile, we have continued building our partnership with the Nashville Department of Transportation (NDOT), and joined them in the Complete Streets Leadership Academy to strategize faster solutions for multimodal transportation in Nashville. Among a number of new streets visioning work, we have continued to partner on Dickerson Pike to test tactical urbanism interventions on the road slated for a major Complete Street project.
Since the Mayoral race in Davidson County is critical for our advocating for actionable change in communities, the team spent months planning a successful Mayor Forum. We invited 4 other organizations that reflected our 3 priority issues-Neighbor 2 Neighbor, Transit Alliance of Middle Tennessee, Urban Housing Solutions, and Walk Bike Nashville-to help us formulate questions and reach a wider audience.
There was something special about our deep focus on the intersection of these city issues that seemed to fire up a commitment to civic duty. Our membership community has grown and is more engaged than we have seen since the COVID-19 pandemic. We just launched our next 3-year Strategic Plan, and we look forward to continuing to lead civic design in Middle Tennessee alongside the new elected officials this Fall.
Board Chair Statement
Facilitating community engagement is a special skill of the Civic Design Center. From identifying commonalities between ideas to bridging connections among a diverse audience, they have this ability to create innovative, but unified plans. People may show up to a community meeting or a design charrette without any knowledge of good design, but they will leave knowing the basic principles that represent the change they want to see. I wasn't yet in the construction industry when I first moved to Nashville in 2002, but when I discovered the Civic Design Center, I felt a certain kind of clarity that I hope everyone can feel when they work on a project with the organization.
I am excited to see deeper connections to Metro Nashville departments and how these partnerships will continue to grow with the new elected officials. We continue to have more sophisticated development opportunities in the city and it requires the outside-the-box thinking that the Civic Design Center can bring to the table. Together, we can influence a built environment that reflects the quality of life that all Nashvillians deserve.
Service Categories |
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| Primary Category: | Community Improvement, Capacity Building - Alliances & Advocacy |
| Secondary Category: | Education - Higher Education |
| Tertiary Category: | Public & Societal Benefit - Citizen Participation |
Areas Served
The Design Center's primary focus is Davidson County and the Middle Tennessee Region. Design Your Neighborhood Program reaches youth in Middle Tennessee, but is ultimately expanding to Chattanooga and rural Tennessee communities. The Design Center also engaged in projects addressing regional transportation and land-use opportunities in ongoing work. As one of the oldest Design Centers in the nation, we consult with other organizations around the country as a civic design thought leader.
| TN - Davidson |
