By Kristina Singiser
There are several considerations for campuses when they put out a call for architects, engineers, and contractors to bid on a construction, renovation, or planning project. Among these may be the business’s size or ownership, particularly when there is a preference for smaller, women-owned, minority-owned, or veteran-owned businesses. These requirements help make sure that bidding firms consider a range of vendors, provide new opportunities, and attract innovative voices to the project. However, once teams are selected and the project begins, they don’t always consider how to incorporate more inclusive principles throughout the life of the project.
Considering that housing projects often entail millions of dollars and hundreds of workers on site for months or years at a time, they provide an opportunity to significantly impact students, the local economy and community, and the industry at large. For those reasons, campuses must look beyond the requirements-for-qualifications (RFQ) document and prioritize strategies that will create an environment focused on supporting all students, strengthening communities, and increasing the number of diverse voices in the industry.
Building an inclusive project begins with intention. Incorporating an intentional plan that carefully considers all the important elements – the team makeup, project design, sharing economic benefits, fostering professional development, and encouraging community engagement – can help propel both a project and the industry forward.
This work, like most, begins with assembling a team. And to design a truly inclusive space, teams must include a variety of voices. This starts by ensuring that the entire team, from designers to vendors, is as diverse as possible. Campuses should consider the state of the industry and look at bringing in traditionally underrepresented groups as well as diverse and small businesses. This may require developing a schedule of educational opportunities and training about unconscious bias, which allows these diverse teams to work better together. An inclusive team can bring positive benefits to the project, allowing a once-unheard voice to offer an insightful idea that changes the course of the design.
Next, the project design should reflect the diversity of the school, students, and local community. Including the user groups in the project creates real opportunities for stakeholder input that considers the voices of students and alumni, especially those who haven’t been consulted before. For example, when the University of California San Diego Ridge Walk North Living and Learning Neighborhood was being created, the design-build team of Hensel Phelps, EYRC Architects, and HMC Architects looked to Thurgood Marshall College students for input. “It’s been so meaningful to include current students and alumni in so many aspects of this project from its initial conception to the finishing touches,” says Amber Vlasnik, dean of student affairs at Thurgood Marshall. Designers met with students to brainstorm ideas about the student housing building’s floor names and wall graphics. Students helped select the imagery and words for the murals that were ultimately included in the design, giving them a sense of ownership in their space. The design-build team’s “ideas and commitments are seen across the neighborhood in the choices made about colors, materials, function of spaces, names, artwork, and so much more,” says Vlasnik. It’s also an effective way to connect past and present, according to Joanne Engler, associate dean of student affairs and director of residential life. “Inclusive design is important to me because it is a way to honor the identities, experiences, and struggles of our current and past community members. I believe inclusive design work also connects us to our history and uplifts the voices and stories within our community.”
When teams incorporate an inclusive design reflective of student experiences and backgrounds, students also feel safer on campus, which can help them improve their grades, graduate on time, or think more creatively. A design charrette conducted by HMC Architects at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, revealed that non-binary, female, and transgender students voiced their concerns about being uncomfortable with traditional restroom layouts. This insight led to a re-imagined restroom design with a fully enclosed toilet, shower, and changing compartment.
To quote an adage, putting your money where your mouth is can be another way campuses demonstrate their commitment to inclusive projects. Campus facility projects involve large sums of money, and the architecture and construction teams can ensure that this money benefits disadvantaged and underrepresented businesses and communities. Sourcing and selecting small and diverse businesses, including subcontractors and supplemental project support, can go a long way in building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive project.
There are a number of shorthand references for categories of business enterprises. For example, SBE refers to small business enterprises, DBE includes disadvantaged business enterprises, MBE stands for minority-owned business enterprises, VBE means veteran-owned business enterprises, DVBE includes disabled veteran-owned business enterprises, and WBE means women-owned business enterprises. When creating calls for trade contractors, such as food vendors or project merchandise and supplies vendors, some firms will use the acronym XBE to include all different types of diverse business enterprises.
Small steps, such as patronizing local small businesses for lunches or networking events, are powerful opportunities to build up local economies. For the Ridge Walk North Living and Learning Neighborhood project, approximately $73 million, or about 15% of the total construction cost, was allocated to small or diverse businesses. "One of Marshall College's founding principles is that our infrastructure should be built by underrepresented contractors and artisans. We appreciate having worked with the build team to learn about how they create opportunities for the community to participate. Their dedication to these principles has helped us to feel like what we are building adheres to our long-held values," says Provost Leslie Carver.
Including the user groups in the project creates real opportunities for stakeholder input that considers the voices of students and alumni, especially those who haven’t been consulted before.
Particularly as these projects involve educational institutions, it is critical for architects, designers, contractors, and engineers to use them as opportunities to foster professional development that will help fill the pipeline with more diverse voices. Involving students in job shadowing opportunities or offering construction site tours to those studying topics outside of architecture and construction are ways that teams can support diverse voices. Teams can also help build the industry’s future by visiting local classrooms to introduce students to the industry, recruiting students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and partnering with a local architecture, construction, and engineering mentorship program. This outreach might mean that a biology student is exposed to the design process, igniting a love of landscape architecture. Or a student in an underrepresented group acquires their first internship in the construction site trailer, shaping the industry’s future. Bringing in underrepresented individuals and groups is another small way that teams can develop the pipeline of future diverse professionals.
Finally, campuses and partnering companies should continually explore ways to leverage the project team for community engagement and betterment. Developing a higher education project is a significant opportunity to become part of a campus’s story. During construction, hundreds of talented people are on campus every day helping to create a new and inspiring space. Involve the project team in local fundraisers, community improvement projects, and other events and partnerships to engage with the community. The Ridge Walk North Living and Learning Neighborhood's design-build team partnered with the university to integrate the school's deeply held values into an inclusion action plan, which ensured that the team maximized the project's potential for impact, that the project was aligned with the university's priorities, and that buy-in and accountability were solidified at all levels of the project. This made incorporating new strategies natural and a seamless part of the project’s lifespan.
Some teams might feel that prioritizing inclusive design principles is unnecessary or that including a checkbox in the RFQ and hiring diverse subcontractors is enough. With everything else going on in the project, inclusive design strategies often fall away. When they do, teams miss out on incredible opportunities to make their teams, and ultimately their projects, even better than they imagined. Incorporating inclusive strategies that welcome various voices, support local economies, and build the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry takes just as much work as anything else. If there is a desire to build a team with a diverse chorus of voices and create a space where students can thrive, these strategies do not have to be overly burdensome. Building a cohesive, connected, collaborative team outweighs any extra work involved and provides many unimagined results.
If teams intentionally create a space where everyone feels at home and these principles are identified as a priority throughout the project, they can do wonders for the student experience, the local community, and the industry.
Kristina Singiser is a managing principal with HMC Architects. A certified design-build professional, she has more than 25 years of experience with higher education projects throughout California.
