Kounkuey Design Initiative

Throughout 2023, we focused our efforts on projects that build equity and inclusion in the public realm and improve public health and well-being throughout all neighborhoods. Across nearly 30 active projects in southern California, we continued to address barriers to more gender-inclusive transportation, boost local preparedness for extreme weather events and environmental hazards, make play accessible to children of all ages and backgrounds, Design spaces that bring housed and unhoused neighborhoods together, and enhance the capacity of local residents to create long-term change in their own communities.when friends of the desert mountains acquired a parcel of land that held a trove of indigenous artifacts, they brought in the local tribe, torres martinez desert cahuilla indians, to guide the land's development and kdi to lead a codesign process. Together, we conceptualized an open-air educational space that will help bring the tribe's history and culture into full view. Our concept Design includes a series of trails punctuated by gathering areas, restorative planting, and an ethnobotanical garden. Once built, this space will provide new places for the tribal community to connect with their heritage, for visitors to engage with local history, and for the transfer of traditional cahuilla knowledge.in 2023, partnering with the los angeles department of transportation, we prepared "next stop: a gender equity action plan," which provides detailed, data-driven strategies for creating a gender-inclusive transportation system. Our previous gender equity transportation study demonstrated that the city's current transportation system falls short of meeting the needs of the low-income bipoc women and people with other marginalized genders. These residents face long travel times, experience difficulty traveling with dependents and cargo, pay a greater share of their income on travel, and experience fear and danger getting where they need to go. As the department's first-ever gender equity action plan, this report is a roadmap of 33 short- and long-term actions to create a safe, affordable, and efficient transportation system for angelenos of all genders.because youth are the future of the eastern coachella valley, we developed a program that engages young people around equitable park access, regional climate resilience, and environmental justice. Throughout 2023, kdi developed a curriculum for seven college of the desert students, who learned to lead community organizing initiatives and empower their peers to recognize their own agency. With our team, they co-designed a mobile environmental justice hub to encourage gathering, provide resources to residents, and display important community information. The hub Design reflects the youths' relationship to their community and landscape and tells the story of community power as it moves through the valley.mar vista gardens, the largest public housing development on la's westside, has the potential to be an urban oasis, offering its low-income tenants connections to many open space amenities. However, residents face numerous physical, socioeconomic, and environmental barriers to accessing quality green space. In 2023, kdi wrapped up a participatory planning process to develop the mar vista greenway: a ballona creek community greening plan. Through community workshops, creekside mobile engagements, surveys, and environmental education at the local boys and girls club, we developed designs for four sites featuring stormwater infrastructure, new public spaces, and recommended new community programs. This project will continue into a second phase, where we will further develop the designs and programs for a greener, more resilient mar vista gardens.

During 2023, the realizing urban nature-based solutions (r-u-nbs) project extended to dar es salaam, tanzania, partnering with the centre for community initiatives to build nature-based solutions in nearby informal settlements. Our work also involved cross-city learning and information sharing between kdi and the karachi urban lab in karachi, pakistan, in order to help develop better, more climate resistant city infrastructure.

Our work also extended outside of California. In Pennsylvania, we oversaw the landscape-related construction of a renovated and reimagined vare recreation center, a beloved community center in south philadelphia. The new center reopened to the public earlier this year.