Community-Engaged Design Education: Power, Culture and Practice
October 8-9, 2026, 鶹Ѱ
Community-Engaged Design Education: Power, Culture, and Practice is an international symposium exploring one of the most urgent questions in design: How do we teach and practice design ethically across cultural boundaries?
In a world where connection and division coexist, this symposium gathers design educators, community partners, social scientists and practitioners to examine how power, culture and lived experience shape community-based design. In this two-day event, we will explore real collaborations in which the learning process is defined by tensions, failures, breakthroughs and reciprocity.
We approach design not as something done for communities, but as something created with them.
About the symposium
This symposium is a collaborative working forum. Through workshops, storytelling sessions and dialog, participants share grounded case studies from architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, planning, product design and related fields.
Culture is not treated as a backdrop, but as a central force shaping knowledge, pedagogy and practice.
The symposium serves as the foundation for a forthcoming edited volume that documents and reflects on these experiences, offering one of the first sustained explorations of power and culture in community-engaged design education.
Goals
The work speaks to community partners, educators, students, practitioners, NGOs, policymakers and researchers across global contexts where design is being reshaped around social justice, cultural sustainability and environmental stewardship. The symposium aims to:
Advance ethical, culturally responsive models of design education.
Examine how power operates in partnerships between universities and communities.
Share global case studies grounded in lived experience.
Bridge education, activism and cultural exchanges.
Provide practical and pedagogical frameworks for participatory design.
Reimagine design education as reciprocal, relational and justice oriented.
Symposium structure
The symposium is organized as a working process thatleads directly to publication. Following the call for abstracts, the selected cases will bethe casespresented at the symposium.
Case-based workshops
Participants willpresent and workshop real community-engaged projects at the symposium, based on abstracts submitted for discussion andpublication. These sessions incoporate local voices, collaborative processes, material negotiations, and ethical challenges. Successes and failures are equally examined.
Collective reflection
Through facilitated dialogue, participants identify shared patterns across cases—ethical tensions, pedagogical dilemmas, and political realities shaping community engagement.
Book development
The resulting volume will be structured in two parts:
- Section I:Case studies
Authored by educators, practitioners, and community partners directly involved in the work. These chapters document processes, challenges, and grounded realities across diverse geographic and cultural contexts. - Section II:Shared Insights
A cross-case reflection examining ethics, pedagogy, politics, and future directions for community-engaged design education.
The bookwillbridges architecture, education, participatory design, community development, cross-cultural studies, and design ethics—offering frameworks that link learning with social responsibility.
Who should participate
If you areworking at the intersection of design, culture, and community engagement, this symposium is for you.Those who will draw the most benefit include:
- Design educators and studio leaders
- Architects, planners, landscape architects, and product designers
- Community partners and nonprofit leaders
- Researchers specializingin pedagogy, anthropology, and cultural studies
- Policymakers and practitioners focused on inclusive development
- Design-build teams and education abroad faculty
- International development and engineering professionals
Call for cases
We invite educators and practitioners to apply to participate in the symposium, and contribute to the resulting publication, by. By sending a ‘case’that haswiththe following components:
- A community engagement design project.
- An educational component.
- An engagement with a community partner.
We welcome casesubmissions that address the following themes:
- Navigating power dynamics, authorship, and equity in community projects.
- How culture and context serve as frameworks for design learning.
- Analyzing the "unspoken" challenges and provisional nature of engagement.
- Storytelling and representation as tools for bridging divides.
- The shifting identity of the educator as researcher, partner, and activist.
Questions and inquiries can be directedto Marianne Holbert.
Abstract closing date of August 10, 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
A case can be a built project, an ongoing initiative, or a speculative/proposed intervention. It should demonstrate meaningful engagement with communities, design, or social processes, even if it has not yet been constructed.
No. A case does not need to be international.Cross-cultural engagement can occur within local or regional contexts where diverse cultural perspectives, communities, or knowledge systems intersect.
The symposium is open to both professionals and students. You may attend without presenting a case. There will be opportunities for engagement beyond presentations, including discussions and collaborative sessions. Additionally, there will be remote engagement opportunities for the symposium.
Yes. You may submit a case for inclusion in the book without attending the symposium. However, only participants in the symposium will be eligible to contribute to the collaborative section developed through the event.
Projects do not need to be completed at the time of abstract submission, but they should be in progress and completed before publication. The book is currently in the contracting process, with an anticipated publication date of late 2028.
Sponsors
The Community-Engaged Design Education symposium gratefully thanks the following sponsors: the at 鶹ѰBoulder; the within CMDI; and the Community Engagement, Design and Research Center (CEDaR).