At Home in the City:
Inviting Connections and Community in Public Space
Thank you to everyone who attended our online forum on March 14, 2024! The recording of this live conversation has been published as an At Home, On Air podcast episode. Enjoy listening to the conversation & please share!
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“I would like to see real development happen in Brown and Black communities… and people to stop using this term of gentrification as an excuse for making people’s lives better.”
– Walter Hood
Thank You to Our Featured Guest: Walter Hood | Landscape Designer, Writer, Artist, Educator, Creative Director & Founder of Hood Design Studio
Thank You to Our Forum Host: Susanne Stadler | Architect, Executive Director of At Home With Growing Older
Conversation Details:
This conversation with Walter Hood focuses on the design of urban environments and opportunities for intergenerational connections.
Professor Walter Hood is an Oakland-based, internationally renowned landscape designer, artist, educator and MacArthur Fellow. The focus of his work is the public realm and urban environments. Much of his work empowers and serves marginalized communities across the country. His studio, research and a number of his projects are based in West Oakland, a neighborhood with great racial diversity and a rich history of Black culture.
Take an hour – in the comfort of your own home – to hear from Walter how his work offers another perspective on our season topic of, “Exploring Healthy Aging in the Places We Call Home: From a Piece of Nature to Our Bodies.”
Watch Walter’s TED Talk about how urban spaces can preserve history and build community:
More About Walter Hood:
Walter J. Hood, a multidisciplinary designer from Charlotte, NC, is globally recognized for his contributions in art, landscape architecture, urbanism, and research. Founding Hood Design Studio in Oakland, CA in 1992, he now leads as its creative director. Walter’s academic journey began at North Carolina A&T State University in architectural engineering. He then transitioned to their pioneering landscape architecture program, graduating in its first class in 1981. Further studies led him to the University of California, Berkeley. His passion for landscape and urbanism emerges from its broad, democratic scope, allowing experiences beyond architectural constraints.
Infusing African American cultural arts into his philosophy, he established a unique voice, reshaping spaces to reflect contemporary needs without erasing their history. A professor at UC Berkeley and former Harvard educator, Walter penned “Black Landscapes Matter” and has received accolades like the 2019 MacArthur Fellowship and the 2021 Architectural League’s President’s Medal award.
Takeaway Resources
From the Discussion:
- Hood Design Studio’s website: www.hooddesignstudio.com
- More about Splash Pad Park
- 10 Towers Black Power: An exhibit at MoMA in New York & San Francisco by Walter Hood
- About the Adeline Corridor Project and Lafayette Square Project: HDS projects in California
- Explore Professor Hood’s work with UC Berkeley
- Urban Diaries: Walter Hood’s book, which presents a new approach to the issues of urban landscape design
- Story of cities: Jane Jacobs v Robert Moses, battle of New York’s urban titans: An article by The Guardian
- The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust: An urban Indigenous women-led land trust based in the San Francisco Bay Area that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people
Other Resources:
- Read AHWGO’s resource letter Something to Write Home About.
- Browse AHWGO selected materials around the season topic of, Exploring Healthy Aging in the Places We Call Home: From a Piece of Nature to Our Bodies.
- View Walter’s & Hood Design Studio publications and projects.
- Check out, “Why Americans Suddenly Stopped Hanging Out,” an article in The Atlantic.
- Watch Walter Hood’s TED Talk about how urban spaces can preserve history and build community.
Examples of Museums Providing Spaces for Community:
“The museum has created, I think, this vacuum to a certain degree, particularly where there is culture. And what we’re finding is we’re getting this really wide group of people coming to those spaces because of those amenities.” – Walter Hood
- Broad Museum in Los Angeles
- Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) in Oakland
- New de Young Museum in San Francisco
- The Cooper Hewitt in New York City
- International African American Museum in Charlston
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The original, live conversation was recorded on:
Thursday, March 14, 2024 at 5:30 PM PST.