Hyde Lecture Series continues with renowned political and cultural justice advocate Stephen F. Gray

The College of Architecture is excited to announce renowned political and cultural justice advocate Stephen F. Gray, associate professor of urban design at Harvard University and founder of Boston-based design firm Grayscale Collaborative, will be giving the next Hyde lecture of the season titled “Design Processes for Racial Equity in the 21st Century American City” at 4 p.m., November 6 via Zoom. https://unl.zoom.us/j/98056085565

Gray’s lecture will explore the relationship between urban infrastructure and race in the United States. His talk will discuss the role race and class have played, and will continue to play, in the design and the production of physical space by interrogating design’s contribution to and complicity with structural and infrastructural racism. By sharing his approaches and experiences with urban design, Gray will illustrate how different processes, design methodologies and interventions can address inequity, exclusion and social injustice to produce more equitable public spaces.

His discussion provokes the question: What conditions –spatially, politically, or economically – must exist to ensure socially just outcomes?

Gray’s recent research projects include the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative foregrounding systemic racism in the socio-spatial development of Boston; process design with the Global Design Initiative for Refugee Children for child-focused spaces; and research with the World Bank examining the interconnectedness of informality, vulnerability and resilience. Gray is currently co-leading an Equitable Impacts Framework pilot project with the Urban Institute and High Line Network aimed at advancing racial equity agendas for infrastructure reuse projects across North America.

This presentation is part of the College of Architecture’s 2020-2021 Hyde Lecture Series featuring speakers from across disciplines that are united under the common theme of “Building Justice- Design and Planning for a Just Society.”

The college’s Hyde Lecture Series is a long-standing, endowed, public program. Each year the college hosts compelling speakers in the fields of architecture, interior design, landscape architecture and planning that enrich the ongoing dialog around agendas which are paramount to the design disciplines and our graduates.