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Design Justice

Design Justice is a movement, created by marginalized communities, aimed to challenge the structures in everyday life, in order to achieve this goal, the movement includes all communities in the creation and designing process. Bryan Lee, a Harvard graduate, says that "architecture and planning not grounded in design justice actually create injustice toward communities".

History

The earliest mention of design justice appears in 2015 where a group of people, including designers, technologists, artists, and members of different communities, came together for a workshop in Detroit in hope to create a shared definition of Design Justice and to create a network.

In 2016 the group achieved their goal of establishing a network. They came together once again, this time design practitioners and organizers, to come up with principles for the movement. This goal was achieved.

In 2018 the principles were edited by groups of volunteers and were finalized. The principles are under a create commons license and allow individuals to sign.

In 2019 a structure was created for the network. Structures include: signatories, members, working group participants, and local nodes.

In 2020, Sasha Constanza-Chock published their book Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need , which was a finalist for a PROSE award in 2021.

Structures

Signatories are those who sign on to the Design Justice principles. It is the first step taken in order to become part of the network. As of 2021 there are 1723 signatories.

The second step to joining the network is becoming a member. Members are asked to pay a membership fee ranging from five to one hundred US dollars a month or to provide volunteer services to the network. Benefits of becoming a member are access to communicate with other members, network with Design Justice builders around the world, invitations to story sharing sessions (and the ability to lead one yourself), ability to increase awareness to your own work, learn new skills and practices, share and apply to new opportunities, build the movement in your own community.

Working Groups are the basis for getting involved in the network. This is where people are able to share stories and ideas to assist the designers in applying the designs in public places.

Local nodes allow groups local to a certain area to "gather and grow design justice related projects, ideas, processes, and community".

Principles

There are ten principles that the Design Justice Network provide on their website, it was last updated in 2018.

1. "We use design to sustain, heal, and empower our communities, as well as to seek liberation from exploitative and oppressive systems."
2. "We center the voices of those who are directly impacted by the outcomes of the design process."
3. "We prioritize design’s impact on the community over the intentions of the designer."
4. "We view change as emergent from an accountable, accessible, and collaborative process, rather than as a point at the end of a process."
5. "We see the role of the designer as a facilitator rather than an expert."
6. "We believe that everyone is an expert based on their own lived experience, and that we all have unique and brilliant contributions to bring to a design process."
7. "We share design knowledge and tools with our communities."
8. "We work towards sustainable, community-led and -controlled outcomes."
9. "We work towards non-exploitative solutions that reconnect us to the earth and to each other."
10. "Before seeking new design solutions, we look for what is already working at the community level. We honor and uplift traditional, indigenous, and local knowledge and practices."