Our team is committed to participatory design and planning strategies that lead to more fair, just, and inclusive spaces in the built environment. We believe that everyone should have a say in decisions about their community, and we work with clients, residents, and other partners in collaborations that meaningfully involve people from diverse backgrounds.
We work with clients and partners to realize the following three impacts across the lifetime of every project:
Non-traditional Partnerships
Our team helps build nontraditional partnerships among government agencies, private nonprofits, community residents, design professionals, and other civic constituents. Our process involves historical and technical analysis alongside narrative-based power mapping exercises, convening diverse groups, fostering transparency, and promoting equitable decision-making that lead to outcomes that benefit all involved.
Equitable Decision-making Strategies
Our team evaluates planning and design processes to intentionally create more opportunities for traditionally underrepresented community members to hold greater decision-making power in how places are envisioned, built, and managed over the long term. By working across disciplines and experiences, we proactively address areas of tension and historical trauma and promote solutions rooted in mutual benefit and power sharing.
Spaces and Places of Belonging
Our approach to planning and design involves uplifting the perspectives of traditionally disinvested communities and creating platforms for more democratic exchange and engagement. We believe that by centering the views of those at the margins, public and private actors can create more accessible, welcoming, and livable spaces for everyone.
Why do these things matter?
Planning has had a long history of decision-making by a small, unrepresentative few at the expense of a much broader public. Unfortunately, these practices continue today. Grayscale works with private and public sector clients to understand and respond to historic and present-day dynamics within a specific project context. We help to convene nontraditional collaborations as an initial - and necessary - step to repair or foster goodwill between community constituents.
Through the planning and design process, we leverage engagement as a means to uplift creative ideas and priorities, and to productively address tensions that can arise across different interests. We work with clients to identify equitable decision-making strategies for both internal processes and external programs, including strategies for continued collaboration and trust-building beyond the contract end.
Ultimately, we believe that designing for those at the margins leads to better, more beautiful spaces for everyone. Public spaces should welcome, excite, and support the needs of the full public. We believe that thoughtful, meaningful planning and design can lead the way for building or supporting spaces and places of belonging.