Booked on Planning

Empathic Design: Perspectives on Creating Inclusive Spaces

• Booked on Planning • Season 3 • Episode 13

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Can empathy change the way we design our cities? Join us as we navigate this compelling question with Elgin Cleckley, author of "Empathic Design: Perspectives on Creating Inclusive Spaces." Through Elgin’s expert insights, we explore how empathy in design goes beyond aesthetics, focusing on how the built environment can recognize and honor identity, culture, history, memory, and place. We highlight the powerful story of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, shining a light on the harrowing yet pivotal narrative of John Henry James, a Black ice cream salesman lynched in 1898, and its touching connection to Charlottesville, Virginia. We also delve into impactful projects like Nina Cook-John’s Harriet Tubman Memorial and Liz Ogbu’s storytelling unit in Hunter's Point, which use materials to transform spaces and foster human connections. Joyce Hwang’s innovative creations, including the Habitat Wall and pollinator lounges, push the boundaries of design by considering both human and animal needs. These discussions underscore the crucial role of fostering a new generation of empathic designers who are deeply attuned to their natural surroundings and local communities.

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Stephanie Rouse:

This episode is brought to you by Lampre-Nierson. Lampre-nierson provides landscape architecture planning and civil engineering services, from community-wide master plans to land development. Lampre-nierson incorporates sustainable design principles and equity in all of their projects. You're listening to the Booked on Planning podcast, a project of the Nebraska chapter of the American Planning Association. In each episode we dive into how cities function by talking with authors on housing, transportation and everything in between. Join us as we get Booked on Planning. In this episode we talk with author Elgin Cleckley on his book Empathic Design Perspectives on Creating Inclusive Spaces. This topic is relatively new to the field of planning and design and I hadn't really thought of it until last year when I read Liberated to the Bone by Susan Raffo, where the idea of being an empath was first introduced to me.

Jennifer Hiatt:

This was my first experience thinking about this concept. As I mentioned in the interview, I haven't really thought much about design until we started reading more about it this year really. So this book really opened my eyes to the opportunities to give deeper thought to how we interact with design.

Stephanie Rouse:

So the book is a series of 10 essays by different authors, which gives a variety of perspectives, not all of them agreeing on the definition of empathic design. But, as we discussed in the show with Elgin, that is what he was really going for. He wanted to curate a town hall sort of discussion of empathic design where the authors were able to provide their viewpoints and open up a dialogue for the reader.

Jennifer Hiatt:

I appreciated how each of the perspectives pushed and pulled against each other. As Elgin mentions. I felt that the design allowed you to dig deeper into how you personally could think about the meaning of empathy, and I really appreciated his book recommendations. At the end I probably will pick up a few of those.

Stephanie Rouse:

Yes, there were quite a few, all really great reads. So one big takeaway for planners, in my opinion, is that engagement should look different than our traditional approaches. Storytelling was discussed, the idea of engaging long-term and not just dropping in for the specific project, really listening and creating a product that reflects the experiences of the community, and I think the book has some great examples of how to start to plan in this way.

Jennifer Hiatt:

I agree. The examples highlighted in the book show how important it is to start engaging the public far before any kind of project is actually even identified or designed. Let's get into our conversation with author Elgin Cleckley on empathic design.

Stephanie Rouse:

Well, elgin, thank you for joining us on Booked on Planning to talk about your book Empathic Design Perspectives on Creating Inclusive Spaces. Most readers understand empathy and the difference between sympathy and empathy, which is addressed in a few chapters, but empathic design isn't as widely understood. Can you define the concept and how you came to end up editing a book about the subject?

Elgin Cleckley:

Can you define the concept and how you came to end up editing a book about the subject? Sure, thank you so much for this opportunity to share more about the book and the great stories that are contained within it. But first I should probably explain how we see empathy in our work. And we look at a great definition from sociologist and researcher Carla McLaren. No-transcript out this way of working with empathic design. This definition of empathy then becomes a way to recognize how people are seen and acknowledged in the built environment. This concept we really want people to understand that it incorporates these layers of identity, of culture, history, memory and place, and I'm really excited to be in this space to kind of create this book, because it's always been an organic process where, either in talks or communications or conferences over the years, I've been really welcomed and met by other empathic designers. This book felt like a really great place to share that story.

Jennifer Hiatt:

And can you share with listeners the project that you opened the book with and talk about why you chose opening with it? It was so impactful.

Elgin Cleckley:

The project that opens the book is quite connected to our lives here in Charlottesville, virginia. Just for listeners, charlottesville, virginia, is in the center of Virginia. It's about two hours south of the DC metropolitan area. A lot of people may remember Charlottesville by what happened here in 2017. The project that starts the book is about a memorial. You may have seen the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, alabama.

Elgin Cleckley:

When you go down and visit that memorial, you'll enter an agora-like space which has these columns, and on the columns are for each county where people were lynched. Black people were lynched. Those columns have duplicates that are outside of the memorial. When you're also inside of the memorial, you walk around it and those columns start to move from being at grade level up above you Before you realize it. As you move your way throughout that memorial, you're in the spot of people who've been watching a lynching. The duplicate columns that are outside the memorial actually are to be located into each of the counties where lynchings occurred, and so Charlottesville is to be the first city to have one of these columns in our court square, in the center of our city, and if you've been to Charlottesville, you know the downtown mall. It's just very close to there, up on a ridge.

Elgin Cleckley:

The memorial is dedicated to John Henry James, who was a black ice cream salesman who's falsely accused of assaulting a white woman named Julia Huttop, and she was lynched by a horde of unmasked white men at Woods Crossing, which is just west of town, on July, the 12th of 1898. The idea of the memorial is to have this column placed at grade so that you're in a one-to-one relationship with the column. It also is right in front of our courthouse, which was visited by three presidents Monroe, madison and Jefferson. It also has a historical marker next to it that tells you the story of James's narrative and also about lynching in America. The marker outside is created by the Equal Justice Initiative and the column itself was created by Mass Design Group.

Elgin Cleckley:

The idea is, for the first time there's a Black narrative being told within our city and in this location where you position yourself and you realize as you look in the distance, you see Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. You turn around, you're in the direction toward Woods Crossing. You also turn back around and realize you're right in front of a courthouse and by starting with this project in the book, it really centers you in this idea of how you feel in a space how you talk about histories that are untold. Imagine as you stand at this memorial too. You look over and you see where slaves were sold in the center of town. The idea here is that this book starts with this story, and you'll find that stories are consistent throughout the book, but also it's a way for us to think about how architecture and the built environment can empathically connect with us.

Stephanie Rouse:

Yeah, I found that really interesting in a lot of these stories of just how much thought and time went into every different element of these installations. It's not just here's a monument, we're going to put it in the middle of a park, it is. How is it situated? Where can you view it from when you're standing here? How does it make you feel? And I thought that was really interesting.

Elgin Cleckley:

I appreciate that point, stephanie, and I really think that's the way empathic designers, how we work. You know, some people would say that we're a bit obsessed about that, and I think that's a great thing. I mean it's, you know, you're really thinking, and it's always born out of deep community engagement. Right, how can I help facilitate and how can I help support the stories that are untold within the landscape? And so that's been a real joy in the book to see that come through.

Stephanie Rouse:

So the book is structured as a series of chapters by 10 different authors, each with a different story to tell. How did you end up curating all these diverse stories and bring them together under this one topic of empathic design?

Elgin Cleckley:

We're really excited about how the book came together and I have to first give some great thanks to Heather Boyer at Island Press.

Elgin Cleckley:

You know we had a lot of conversations in the development of the book to think about how to move from I to we. I mean, we've seen this a lot in architecture, where it's one story or a singular point of view, or in the built environment. But how can the book feel like it's a community, and so the curating was really easy. It felt very organic. It's one of those situations where over a couple of months after deciding it could be this space and thinking about how the book could just share different design methods and techniques, you'd have a great conversation with someone and think, oh my God, that'd be great, you should be in the book, this would be wonderful. It just kind of naturally came together and then sometimes really wonderful moments would happen where someone would hear about the book in progress and say you should talk to this person and it became a really nice way to create a community. I'm really thrilled about how it's come together.

Jennifer Hiatt:

And building on those relationships and how it came together. I noticed that while I was reading although, as you did at the beginning of this podcast, you lay out your principles for empathic design in the introduction, some of the authors actually seem to kind of push a little bit against that definition, or they offered clarifications of how they think about empathic design in their essays. And one of my favorite things is learning from others partly why we started this podcast. So I was wondering what was one thing that you learned from the other authors that might have deepened your understanding around your ideas, around a path hack design.

Elgin Cleckley:

Thanks so much for talking about that, and you know it's something that we really talked about too as we were making our community. I think there was a back and forth at times. Contributors were saying do you want me to contrast or agree? And I said, actually I want it to feel like a conversation. I actually wanted to feel a bit like a community meeting where there are lots of different opinions and ideas but we all have some specific and connected goals.

Jennifer Hiatt:

Yeah well, you succeeded greatly in that it really did feel that way.

Elgin Cleckley:

It was great to hear. It took a while to curate that and that came a lot out of how we wanted to make sure that everybody understood that. We're all trying to figure it out. I think if it seems like it's a system of absolutes, it doesn't leave room for space.

Elgin Cleckley:

I would say that Christine Gaspar's chapter really resonated with me because she was dealing with a lot of things I really had to deal with in just empathy, coming from the design thinking field. A lot of ideas in design thinking empathy is used as something for capital gain, the idea that perhaps I've had a couple of interviews and then now we're going to go forth with this idea which results to a product. But she talks about this idea and how that has really shaped us in the field and looking at empathy a lot in design and shifting it to accountability and compassion, which I really agree with, and I love how she laid out the ideas of how accountability, as we as empathic designers, needs to be something that's not only personal but also how we're operating. And then compassion to move us past these quick understandings of empathy to something where we're really working in a sense of support. Not that I have the answer, but how can I bring forward my skills to help and support? So I really appreciate it for perspective.

Stephanie Rouse:

Similarly, were there any projects or design processes that were covered in the book that stood out to you or that really resonated with you when you learned about them?

Elgin Cleckley:

One thing that really resonated and it made me think about a future book, which I thought all right, which is classic. Right, you finish a book and you think, all right, here's another book. It's just how materials technique on the exterior to remind you of the freedman's camp that was on the site in DC. Also, how they used bronze to tell the story and connect with those who were there on the site. I also was thinking about the tiles that Nina Cook-John has that are created in community on the Harriet Tubman Memorial in Newark, where they were made out of community workshops. People had responses of what does Harriet mean to you? They wrote them on these beautiful quilt pieces which become part of the memorial.

Elgin Cleckley:

I'm also thinking about how Liz Ogbu creates this beautiful story core unit in Hunter's Point, this project to get an idea of what are the stories about, what could possibly happen on a huge expanse of paved land. And I think about how those stories could really connect and what could you create there, the idea that within this unit, you're using soft materials and furniture so that people feel really comfortable to tell a story. Perhaps there's a connection. I found that thread of how materials, as a result of these deep ways of thinking. A result of these deep ideas of the process can become a way to really connect with people. It's this real, beautiful idea of moving it away from perhaps what we see in the built environment that doesn't connect with us, to materials that do.

Jennifer Hiatt:

So one of the stories that really impacted me. I'm not a designer by any means, nobody wants to see that and we have covered a few design books this season, so I've been starting to think about designing and designing around people. But then we have a story about designing for animals as well as people in your book and even though, like I would say that I'm an animal lover, I had not ever really given much thought to designing with what Joyce Wang's term middle species. So how did you come across her and her studies and include this in your essay?

Elgin Cleckley:

You know I really love Joyce Wang's work. I became familiar with her work through some collaborations with ACSA, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, but you know it also came from just along. You know we all have this where we find ourselves either fighting with nature in our homes or finding a way to connect, or we'll find spaces that really do an amazing way of supporting nature and the environment, and her work does this in such a beautiful way. I first saw a prototype wall she called the Habitat Wall, which created spaces for bats, raccoons and birds, and she just opened a new pollinator lounge as part of the natural attractions a plant pollinator love story in Brooklyn Botanical Garden right now. It's really amazing to see and she just has this beautiful sensitivity that made me really realize and made us really realize.

Elgin Cleckley:

Well, this is really missing in our conversations, not only just in the academy but out in the world and thinking on macro and micro scales. I also spent a long time thinking about the effects of architecture on bird strikes. I've lived now in so many cities where it's just nonstop, and when I lived in Toronto we did a lot of work. I worked at the Ontario Science Centre for about 16 years and we did a lot of work with the building to think about how we could not actually be violent toward nature, how we could connect, and we really felt that it would be a beautiful way to include her in this community too and to expand the way that readers and also anyone who's connected with the book could think about connecting with nature.

Jennifer Hiatt:

My favorite was she was talking about her project and watching a little frog try to jump up and they couldn't. So she built in little frog steps so they could access like I would have never thought.

Elgin Cleckley:

Right, it's just amazing, right. Yeah, it's beautiful and it made me think too and you know she does incredible collaborations with students at the University of Buffalo that you know, thinking education wise. It's. How exciting is that? Because it's going to create a whole new generation of students who are really attuned and empathic in really deep ways.

Stephanie Rouse:

We've mentioned engaging with community a little bit and throughout reading this book, I kept thinking about how, as planners, we tend to do project-specific engagement build it all up at the time of the project focused on that project. But there were some really great examples of nonprofit organizations highlighted in the book in different chapters being really intentional about engaging with the community in an ongoing way. But I didn't really see any city governments doing this type of work. Have you come across any examples like this of city or county agencies doing this kind of continuous engagement and outreach with the community, instead of just coming to them over and over project-based?

Elgin Cleckley:

We've been really fortunate to work on some pretty recent projects that do this. One's out of the city of Lynchburg and this is led by Ann Nygaard and the planning department there, and it's for the Deerington neighborhood, the Jefferson Park plan. We were asked to come and help with a series of some workshops about what could go into Jefferson Park, but we were coming in at a much later point where there were lots of previous community engagement that already had existed, and so it was incredible because when we came to the project we basically were handed. Here is what the findings are so far. Here are the materials. So we just were there to really understand how to support and help these next stages. That research the amount of research that the City of Lynchburg completed was really supportive in that we were able to imagine that what could that workshop be, and the workshop actually was in Jefferson Park.

Elgin Cleckley:

Jefferson Park is actually located in the north end of Darrington and if you look out from the park you'll see what the location of where a pool used to be this pool actually is covered by earth. It was actually purposely covered by the city to prevent integration in the 60s. It later became a dump and then it later became a place where all of your Christmas trees ended up and they just sealed it over with dirt. So you can imagine what that effect would be if you live in the nearby community, to see this space, which has been almost a monument to that action. And so the idea was to have this community engagement, which happened over quite a period of time. We came along to that workshop. We were there on site to help, to think about what could happen in the park and to support the city and community's work. It really became a great opportunity to see how their in-depth research, the work that they were already doing, and how we as designers could again just be compassionate in that space.

Jennifer Hiatt:

Storytelling comes up over and over again. I tend to write short stories. I think storytelling is so vital, but sometimes I don't see as much in planning work. So how can planners work with designers to make sure that storytelling is incorporated into every aspect of the built environment?

Elgin Cleckley:

Consider storytelling to be almost the gateway to empathy. Right, it's the way to really connect. And I think that planners have such an important role here because, you know, in architecture we have a tendency often to just be focused on the look of something how does it look, what's its relationship, maybe historically, to other architectural precedents, perhaps how it responds to other architectural precedents and instead, I think, planners bring this incredible tool to really think deeply about what it does, what does it do in the built environment, what does the structure do, and to think about the idea of it being a catalyst in the built environment, also sharing an understanding of how a city works. The demographic information, population trends, employment, health this all goes in a guide. So specifically to move beyond just what that look is. And so I think it's really important to have planners within this space, in this development space and we have that on the project in Lynchburg, for instance and I think about this idea of storytelling and how it's incorporated, say that planners really, with this knowledge, can really then set up really successful spaces, innovative spaces, in the beginning, to share these stories and those stories, what's learned in those falls, all the way from conceptual to full fabrication, construction, and afterward really understand if it's been successful or not.

Elgin Cleckley:

Back on that Jefferson Park project, we actually were really focused on this and the city had already done that. The planners of the city already set up community workshops where they sat with residents and they had pulled out photographs of what it was like to actually be at the pool, and so they had this beautiful video made and you understood the full stories about what it was to experience the pool and how much the pool really meant to Durrington residents. So when we first got the project, we were able to watch that video and immediately be transported into them through their souls. These stories are incredibly important and they became the foundation for every aspect of the built environment.

Stephanie Rouse:

That's really, really neat. I think a great way to capture that sentiment for future phases of projects and future planners that come along.

Elgin Cleckley:

Definitely, and really respectful too. You know it's a real Virginia thing to sit around and have a beautiful storytelling moment, chat about life. It's kind of the beauties of the South where conversation within it you can learn so much, and I think that's one of the things that's really important that planners understand going into it. All right, these are the conditions that we can set up for these great conversations and deep conversations to happen. Liz Ogbu talks about this in her chapter in the book about making space for grief with the Inner Belt Project in Akron, and she showed me an image of a huge dinner table that they set up on the Inner Belt, on the former highway, to have these conversations. So I mean really thinking about that feels like a real connected to planning to think about. All right, this could be the location, how do we set up a space to tell these stories? And that work is really becoming part of the structure for how to move the project forward.

Jennifer Hiatt:

And I thought it was just so important that not only did people hear these stories because we hear stories a lot in our public input, no matter how it's led we sit and we listen with people but over and over again, these stories were captured and saved in a way that could be shared right, as you said, with future planners and perpetuity made into a part of the design, and I thought that that was so important a part of the process, as opposed to just hearing it, capturing and using and sharing out.

Elgin Cleckley:

I think that's a really powerful point. I think a lot of the stories that Liz was speaking about are now saved and you can go to the public library they're also through the library to find those stories. I'm also thinking about Nina Cook-John's work where the ideas behind the Harriet Tubman Memorial either there was a community workshop that allowed you to share these stories while they were making quilt patches. They also had a private room set up at the workshops if you needed a space to feel more comfortable to tell your story, or you could go to the library and tell your story. But then all this becomes a lighter record and it means that you know the work sees you and that the community sees you and they become part of this resource which really shapes how designers work and to your point. That's really vital, I think, in any empathic project, to make sure that you understand what's guiding and what's directing you in a way that you can bring your full support.

Stephanie Rouse:

So your chapter begins by defining empathy without the E, because that takes the ego out of it, and then you discuss your three-part design process, which includes uncovering layers of social, cultural, historical, economic, political, environmental and natural. Do you see that others are addressing all of these separate layers when they're leading these empathic design projects, or are there certain layers of this in-design that you see that are commonly overlooked?

Elgin Cleckley:

It's a great question and I'm finding that it's really happening continually with a lot of public projects now, where all these layers are really coming into play. I do think one layer that needs a bit more support or innovation is economic. We've been working on a project in Asheville, north Carolina, over the last while in an area called Burton Street and it's led by Hoodhuggers International and that's Dwayne Barton and Safi Martin. They've been creating this incredible wellness and health space, which is also based on ideas of really thinking about economic innovation and supporting BIPOC communities. But you know, their processes and their practices are modeled on the great man, ew Pearson, who basically was called the mayor of West Asheville, which is this area where Burton Street is located. You know he actually created new neighborhood designs there, helped create the new neighborhoods. He created African-American subdivisions. He was an African-American entrepreneur. He was a Buffalo soldier, spanish-american war veteran, civil rights leader, but he also ran a general store. He had a. It was called the Mountain City Mutual Insurance Company. He also ran a mail order shoe business called the Piedmont Shoe Company and the general store in West Asheville was for all these operations. He also donated a local park and he also created this annual Buncombe County District Colored Agricultural Fair. Oh wait, he also formed the Asheville Royal Giants, which is the first Black semi-professional baseball team.

Elgin Cleckley:

I mean, all that alone is just mind-blowing, right, and you're thinking okay, that's just incredible. What a way to think about community and what about community spaces? Now, looking back to this moment, this reconstruction moment, of thinking about how to reinterpret what happens on the site, and that's the amazing work that Dwayne Barton and Safi Martin have really done in this space. But it's also supported going back to your earlier question by the City of Asheville's Reparations Committee. And so the neighborhood of Burton Street actually has had a highway 26 and 240, if you're familiar with Asheville first cut through the heart of the Burton Street neighborhood, as we know this story oh too well. But this is the third time. The highway is now expanding into the community and it's actually expanding right into more of the heart of Burton Street, which is also having incredible amounts of gentrification. These two lots actually were donated by the city and the reparations committee and this work now Dwayne and Safi are doing it's now the first commercial real estate project in the city that's community-led.

Elgin Cleckley:

So all of a sudden now they're creating this whole new idea of what could be by looking back and bringing those layers back on the site.

Jennifer Hiatt:

The book is actually very easy to read, but dense with information. What would you say is the biggest takeaway you hope to leave the readers of your book with?

Elgin Cleckley:

It's great to hear that the book is easy to read.

Elgin Cleckley:

I say that because we really tried hard to make sure that it was open to a large audience, and so that's really great to hear. But we really hope that readers take away a question that I got all the time after the racial reckoning of 2020. It would come up often where people were saying, all right, well then, how can I be more empathic or how can I work with more empathy, and I feel like the different ways and disciplines you see in the book really will give you some ideas to take away to think about your own personal and professional ways of empathically practicing. I also really hope that readers come away feeling really energized and excited. I think it's a real time for optimism. I think it's really easy for us to say, well, it's hard, or how on earth do I start this? But to see so many different ways and then also stories where people are trying to do their best, I think is really optimistic and I really hope they come away with the feeling of like, all right, let's get to it.

Jennifer Hiatt:

And always our last question, my favorite question what books would you recommend our readers check out?

Elgin Cleckley:

If y'all are like me where you have a stack of books that you kind of read parts of and kind of move through them. One of the things the book though. We really had a great time putting together some great references. The books I kind of always return back to are the books that were foundational for the empathy research, like Empathy by Susan Lanzoni, the Art of Empathy by Carla McLaren. Breast is Resistance by Tricia Hersey, which is always a great one to go back to to connect the book I'm really excited to dive into a bit more is what it Takes to Heal by Prentice Hemphill. Their book really is supportive to think about these next steps, the next steps, thinking about the personal and also the professional ways to move forward. I've also really enjoyed reading Feminist City Claiming Space in a Man-Made World by Leslie Kern. I think her positions are really a way of expanding the view of what's happening within the built environment and also feels really at home with our research.

Elgin Cleckley:

Jt Rowan's Dark Agoras. Instead of just asking designers about how architecture can fix the ongoing production of spatial injustice, you know what are the existing livable worlds that are already existing, that can help us work against systems that are oppressing, really enjoying Spatializing Justice 30 Building Blocks by Teddy Cruz and Fauna Foreman. It really reads like a handbook that helps you confront social and economic inequality in today's cities. And the last book I'm really enjoying too is called Happy City by Charles Montgomery. It's just a really beautiful idea about thinking about a smile when you're within a city. I mean, I've always loved the idea of all right. What does happiness mean? What are those moments that really connect with us? And I would say that if we would do another book, perhaps it's materials and emotions for empathy, right? What are the emotions for empathy, right? Like, what are the materials for empathy over here and what are the emotions for empathy?

Stephanie Rouse:

It's making me think about these empathic ideas of the city. A very great list of books for our listeners to check out, and Happy Cities come up a few times in our author recommendations as well. I think it's a somewhat older book but still very worth checking out. But, elgin, thank you so much for joining us to talk about your book, empathic Design.

Elgin Cleckley:

Thank you all so much for the time, really appreciate it.

Jennifer Hiatt:

We hope you enjoyed this conversation with author Elgin Cleckley on his book Empathic Design Perspectives on Creating Inclusive Spaces. You can get your own copy through the publisher at islandpressorg, or click the link in the show notes to take you directly to our affiliate page. Remember to subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts and please do take the time to rate, review and share the show. Thank you.

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Jennifer Hiatt

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Stephanie Rouse, AICP

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