Lecture Series: Gina Ford, Agency Landscape + Planning | Agency in Action: Stories of Community-Engaged Design

Community engagement, once a box to be checked as part of public design commissions, is increasingly a creative driver in the design and planning of public realm in cities. Building on her practice’s mission, Gina will share stories of projects - across geographies, project types and scales - of inspired community-engaged design. She will explore Agency’s philosophy, tactics and experience in engagement and outreach with an emphasis on how the welcoming of community voice leads to better design outcomes.

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Agency is the capacity of human beings to act, to make choices. Planning can empower people. Design is an act of optimism. Empowerment and optimism are much needed, today more than ever. At Agency Landscape + Planning, we believe in the power of people to initiate and make purposeful, positive change. 

Agency is a mission-driven practice dedicated to addressing social equity, cultural vitality and environmental resilience through design excellence, strategic planning and community empowerment. We believe that - in order to address the most challenging issues of our contemporary society - diversity and inclusion are foundational to how we see, understand and, ultimately, shape our collective experience, particularly in the public spaces, parks and streets of our urban communities. We seek landscape and planning opportunities that allow us to partner meaningfully with constituents, that welcome many voices and hands in the process, and that produce outcomes that are deeply connected to the richness and uniqueness of place. 

Agency is a women-run business enterprise led by partners Gina Ford and Brie Hensold. Our leadership - combined with a collective team of passionate and talented landscape architects, planners and urban designers - enables the full spectrum of design services - from strategic planning to complex landscape implementation.