DESIGN RICHMOND is an interactive guide and activity book that will empower residents, specifically youth ages 13-18, to become active participants in the design of their communities.

Imagine living in a city where access to food, transportation, green space, and opportunity is universal. design richmond will take us to that place: a city where citizens participate in the planning and design of their own communities.

Through the interactive guide and activity book, residents will:

1. Explore the city from their own perspective

2. Foster pride for living in Richmond

3. Learn how Richmond was planned and designed

4. Discover challenges in their community and imagine solutions

5. Build vocabulary & understanding of city planning and design

6. Identify career fields that shape our neighborhoods

The success of similar guidebooks in Baltimore, My Baltimore Book, and Chicago, No Small Plans, were the inspiration for the book. Design Richmond is organized into four chapters: Health and Wellness, Land Use, Transportation, and Housing. Each chapter will encourage residents to investigate the city’s past planning and design, discover current challenges, and design solutions that create effective change in their lives and communities.

Storefront for Community Design kicked off the development of Design Richmond in fall 2022. In 2023, Storefront is collaborating with urban planning and design professionals, consultants, nonprofit partners, educators, and youth to create the activity book and launch it in 2024. The book will provide supplemental activities for middle school classrooms and nonprofit programs, an accessible resource for Richmond residents, and new curriculum for Storefront’s City Builders program.

Why Design Richmond?

Place profoundly impacts opportunities and life chances. In Richmond’s changing landscape, residents, specifically youth ages 13-18, do not have the opportunity to participate in the city planning, nor understand the complex forces shaping the designs. All of the elements of our neighborhoods come together through planning and design. When the public is engaged in planning decisions, both a place and its people benefit: solutions align more closely with what matters, outcomes enhance equity of access, and trust in government grows.

Design Richmond will support the goals of the city’s new master plan, Richmond 300: A Guide for Growth: to create a more equitable, sustainable, and beautiful city. By connecting residents to the resources they need to arrive at real life solutions for Richmond’s built environment, the book will transform engaged citizens into agents of equity and change.

How will the interactive guide and activity book be created?

Storefront for Community Design kicked off the development of Design Richmond in fall 2022 in collaboration with urban planning and design professionals, consultants, nonprofit partners, and our City Builders program participants. Together they will develop an interactive guide that supports the city’s new master plan, Richmond 300, and connects residents to the resources they need to arrive at real life solutions for Richmond’s built environment.

Interested to get involved? Learn more.

The success of similar guidebooks in Baltimore and Chicago were the inspiration for Design Richmond.

Design Richmond will be created by a group of RPS students enrolled in the City Builders Design program at Storefront. Becky Slogeris, author of My Baltimore Book, will serve as one of our project consultants, guiding the work of teens who are led by local urban planning and design professionals, consultants, nonprofit partners, educators, local policy advocates, VCU design faculty, and Storefront staff. Additional stakeholders and subject-matter experts will be recruited throughout the process to design and review content and design activities.

Together they will develop an interactive guide to civic engagement written on the 6th grade reading level. Interested to get involved? Send us an email and let us know.

We need your support! We have big goals for Design Richmond. Through continued collaboration with educators and nonprofits across the city, we will pilot the handbook in middle school classrooms in 2025. The interactive guide and activity book will amplify the classroom experience by immersing teens in real-life situations where they can exercise their new-found understanding. See below for ways to get involved:

Volunteer

There will be opportunities to volunteer as peer reviewers, help create activities for the book, or share and develop content. Volunteer opportunities will kick off in spring 2023. Interested? Complete our volunteer form to let us know.

Sponsor or Donate

Your support will provide City Builders Design semester programming where participants will help build content for the book. In addition, your support will assist with staffing/administration, consultant fees, printing, and copying. See below for ways to support Design Richmond.

A HUGE thanks to our current supporters of our City Builders Design program and development of Design Richmond.

Grant Supporters

Sponsors

• Highwoods Properties

• Froehling & Robertson, Inc.

CONTACT
hello@storefrontrichmond.org