Kofi Boone: The Commons: Land, Property, Information, and Landscape Legacy

Bio:
Kofi Boone, FASLA is a University Faculty Scholar and Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at NC State University in the College of Design. Kofi is a Detroit native and a graduate of the University of Michigan. His work is in the overlap between landscape architecture and environmental justice with specializations in democratic design, digital media, and interpreting cultural landscapes. He serves on the Board of Directors of The Corps Network as well as the Landscape Architecture Foundation where he is President-Elect.

Presentation:
The Twin Pandemics of 2020, COVID-19 and the reckoning over racial justice, forced critical examination across built environmental fields. How have we enabled the perpetuation of inequity through the design, planning, and policies affecting our places? And do we have the capacity to change these processes? As communities, organizations, schools, and other entities are engaged in shifting their agendas, what are our theories of change? How are the built environment professions framing the change process? And since the changes required go beyond the scope of a single entity, what theories can coexist and compliment systems level change enabling equity? In this presentation, theories of change will be framed and discussed in the context of historic and current disciplinary transformations. The presentation is grounded in situations centering landscape architecture and environmental planning. However, lessons learned can extend to other built environment disciplines.
--
This lecture was presented at the 50th edition of the LABash Student Conference, curated by students in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Cornell University, and Land8 Media, LLC.