Alliance ACTIVATE: Designing Inclusive Futures Together

Calling all architects, allied design professionals, students and community members working toward a more accessible and inclusive built environment: Please join us for the inaugural ACTIVATE symposium, the Alliance for Inclusive Design Practice and Research’s new annual community-engagement series.

The Alliance for Inclusive Design Practice and Research, successor to NC State’s Center for Universal Design, carries forward the center’s overarching goal of inclusivity. ACTIVATE brings that legacy into a hands-on format, connecting community knowledge, lived experience, and design practice around real-world built environment challenges.

ACTIVATE pairs architects and allied professionals directly with community members, students and local partner organizations in structured breakout teams. Building on the history of the Center for Universal Design and creating a foundation for future convenings, Year 1 applies a framework of engagement to support disability access. In subsequent years, ACTIVATE will explore inclusive design through additional dimensions of human experience — including aging, culture and identity, economic opportunity, and neurodiversity — building knowledge across years about how people experience and shape the built environment.

Questions guiding the day include:

What currently works well in our built environment, and where are there opportunities for improvement? What can lived experience reveal about a place that traditional design processes might miss?What matters most to people in feeling welcomed, supported, safe, and able to participate in a place?What would it look like for architects and allied professionals to genuinely collaborate with communities in the design process?Through listening, observation, discussion, and collaborative design exercises, ACTIVATE will create opportunities for professionals, students and community members to learn from one another while developing ideas that can inform both local implementation and the broader practice of inclusive design.