Storefront for Community Design inspires equitable community-driven design through our low-cost design and planning assistance programs and design education programs. Check out our June Notes from the Field to learn about recent updates from our programs.

Design Education: City Builders Design Workshop

We convene project-based learning opportunities that focus on real world issues in the built environment and encourage youth and young adults to discover and design solutions that create effective change in their lives and communities. Learn more about City Builders Design Workshop.

Spring Session: A Health Messaging Campaign

This spring, the City Builders Design Workshop focused on how the built environment affects the health of a community. Students living in the City of Richmond ages 13-18 explored the foundation of a healthy city and discovered how social determinants of health play an important role. According to the World Health Organization, social determinants of health include factors like socioeconomic status, education, neighborhood and physical environment, employment, and social support networks, as well as access to health care.

COVID-19 has impacted our built environment and forced us to rethink how we use spaces. City Builders Design students, in partnership with the Richmond Henrico Health District, a graphic design mentor, VCU design students, and professional designers, created unique posters to communicate health messaging in their own neighborhood. A city is only as healthy as the people that live, learn, work and play in it!

Storefront for Community Design operates three main community-based studio programs: Youth Innovation, Design Session, and Community Engagement. Check out our latest highlights for each studio below. If you’re interested in getting involved, check out our summer volunteer opportunities.

Youth Innovation Studio

The Youth Innovation Studio provides project-based learning opportunities that engage youth and young adults in real-world problem solving while providing a safe space to build the capacity to create effective change in their lives and communities.

Fall Session
Tis the season to be thankful. Thank you to all of our generous donors for assisting us in reaching our September fundraising goal for our Youth Innovation Studio! Thanks to you, we were able to kickstart our programming this fall.

The City Builders design program launched in October with a focus on creating solutions for healthy food access in the city. We have begun our education and discovery phase to learn more about the challenges of the community.

In October, we welcomed Ebony Walden, Urban Planner, Consultant, and Creator of the Racial Equity Essay project. During her visit, the youth participants had the opportunity to learn about the history of urban planning in Richmond and completed a community planning analysis to identify the needs of the Highland Park community. Later this semester, they will be digging deeper into the challenges of food accessibility for residents in Richmond as we learned that five out of five residents surveyed did not have access to a grocery store within walking distance. Of the five residents interviewed, only one had access to a car.

Storefront for Community Design operates three main community-based studio programs: Youth Innovation, Design Session, and Community Engagement. Check out our latest highlights for each studio below. If you’re interested in getting involved, check out our summer volunteer opportunities.

Youth Innovation Studio

The Youth Innovation Studio provides project-based learning opportunities that engage youth and young adults in real-world problem solving while providing a safe space to build the capacity to create effective change in their lives and communities.

Fall Session
Tis the season to be thankful. Thank you to all of our generous donors for assisting us in reaching our September fundraising goal for our Youth Innovation Studio! Thanks to you, we were able to kickstart our programming this fall.

The City Builders design program launched in October with a focus on creating solutions for healthy food access in the city. We have begun our education and discovery phase to learn more about the challenges of the community.

In October, we welcomed Ebony Walden, Urban Planner, Consultant, and Creator of the Racial Equity Essay project. During her visit, the youth participants had the opportunity to learn about the history of urban planning in Richmond and completed a community planning analysis to identify the needs of the Highland Park community. Later this semester, they will be digging deeper into the challenges of food accessibility for residents in Richmond as we learned that five out of five residents surveyed did not have access to a grocery store within walking distance. Of the five residents interviewed, only one had access to a car.

Storefront for Community Design operates three main community-based studio programs: Youth Innovation, Design Session, and Community Engagement. Check out our latest highlights for each studio below. If you’re interested in getting involved, check out our summer volunteer opportunities.

Youth Innovation Studio

The Youth Innovation Studio provides project-based learning opportunities that engage youth and young adults in real-world problem solving while providing a safe space to build the capacity to create effective change in their lives and communities.

Summer Session
Thanks to our partnership with Partnership for the Future, Storefront had the opportunity to work with two youth interns this summer. Our interns were given the opportunity to select, participate, and complete a project from our implementation plan. We wanted to make sure that while leadership created the implementation plan, youth voices were heard and involved in the process. During this process, our youth interns engaged in conversations with the community, visited designers and their spaces, assisted in the remodeling of the 6PIC space, and helped to lead various parts of our volunteer days with Mending Walls.

The mOb studio is an interdisciplinary studio that brings together the departments of graphic, fashion, and interior design at VCUarts. The fall and spring semester course operates as an innovative design lab that realizes the potential of design to shape the city of Richmond. The mOb studio collaborates with Storefront’s Design Session allowing students to gain practical design experience while engaging the city.

The city as classroom

We wrapped up an exciting spring semester with mOb studiO last month! mObians are as resilient as ever and together we navigated an interdisciplinary service-learning class environment with curiosity, innovation and enthusiasm. mOb tackled four projects this semester along with prompts for their urban sketchbooks that served to grow their understanding of the city as a classroom. Here’s a recap of mOb projects and final outcomes:

Storefront for Community Design operates three main community-based studio programs: Youth Innovation, Design Session, and Community Engagement. Check out our latest highlights for each studio below. If you’re interested in getting involved, check out our summer volunteer opportunities.

Youth Innovation Studio

The Youth Innovation Studio provides project-based learning opportunities that engage youth and young adults in real-world problem solving while providing a safe space to build the capacity to create effective change in their lives and communities.

Spring Session
As the school year ends, we are preparing to celebrate 14 students and families for consistently attending virtual school at Six Points Innovation Center (6PIC). Many of our students realized virtual school was not ideal for their learning style, so by attending virtual classes at 6PIC many were able to improve their grades significantly through the support of our 6PIC partner, Saving Our Youth, and several dedicated volunteers. We are thankful to Richmond Public Schools for providing reopening information to our students and answering questions about what to expect when our students return to school next year.

It's been a busy start to 2021 as Storefront for Community Design welcomed a new Executive Director and Center Director. The Board of Directors and staff have taken this time to reflect upon the progress we’ve made and establish a vision moving forward. This edition of Notes from the Field will catch you up on recent program highlights and upcoming program opportunities.