Designing greater inclusion means changing both who makes decisions and how places are planned, built, remembered, and maintained. An inclusive project treats lived experience as design evidence, removes barriers created by environments, protects community histories, and gives affected people real influence over outcomes. The approach applies to landscape architecture, public-realm construction, parks, streets, cultural sites, and the organizations that deliver them.
Inclusion is a decision-making issue, not an aesthetic layer
Inclusive design is often reduced to a list of physical features. Those features matter, but the discussion reported in the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) article Designing Greater Inclusion, published November 8, 2022, makes a broader argument. A landscape can meet a formal requirement and still exclude people if the project team decides whose safety counts, whose history is visible, which activities are welcome, or who can afford to remain after redevelopment.
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For construction and landscape teams, inclusion therefore has two connected parts:
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- Place-making: the built environment must address barriers, support varied bodies and senses, and retain or interpret community meaning rather than erasing it.
These are not interchangeable experiences. The needs of Black professionals, disabled and neurodivergent people, LGBTQIA+ communities, and residents affected by racialized planning overlap in some projects but are not one universal condition. Treating them as separate lenses produces better questions and fewer symbolic gestures.
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Who gets to shape the profession?
What the 2021 student figures show—and do not show
At the forum covered by ASLA, Marc Miller, ASLA, cited the 2021 ASLA Graduating Student Survey: Black students represented 1 percent of landscape-architecture students, while white students represented 69 percent. These are survey figures reported in 2022, not a current enrollment census or a measure of every landscape-architecture program. Their value is diagnostic: a profession designing public places cannot claim broad representation when entry into the field is so uneven.
Miller framed the challenge with the question, “Who will be in this room in the future?” The question applies to project teams, public meetings, procurement panels, juries, classrooms, and executive decisions. Counting attendance is not enough if the same people retain control over scope, budget, schedule, and acceptable risk.
BlackLAN’s model of professional support
The article describes BlackLAN as a global network focused on education, community, and service through events, online networking, and a scholarship. It reported about 240 members worldwide in 2022 and said the organization incorporated as a 501(c)(3) in 2020. Its Edward Lyons Pryce Scholarship honors the first Black ASLA Fellow, according to the report.
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For employers and clients, this suggests practical responsibilities beyond a one-time diversity statement:
- Build paid pathways for students and early-career practitioners, rather than relying on unpaid participation.
- Advertise roles and public consultations through networks that reach underrepresented professionals.
- Give participants authority over defined decisions and document how their input changes the work.
- Track who receives mentorship, promotion, authorship, and leadership opportunities.
The membership number is the article’s 2022 figure; it is not presented as a current census. The underlying lesson is organizational: inclusion requires durable education, community, and service infrastructure.
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Disability: design around barriers, not a presumed defect
The social model in a landscape project
Alexa Vaughn and Danielle Toronyi’s framing, quoted by ASLA, says the social model of disability “doesn’t seek to fix disabled people but instead puts disabled people and their experiences at the center.” This shifts the design question from “How do we correct an individual?” to “Which features, rules, sensory conditions, or operating practices restrict participation?”
A steep route, confusing information, glare, unpredictable noise, inaccessible maintenance procedures, or a policy that excludes assistance animals can all create disability in practice. The person has not changed; the environment has imposed a barrier. Universal design is one route landscape architects can use to address those barriers, but it is a way of working rather than a guarantee that one solution suits everyone.
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Consultation after drawings are complete usually limits the available choices. Invite disabled people into early problem definition, site walks, option development, mock-ups, and post-occupancy review. Pay for expertise and provide accessible meeting formats, advance materials, breaks, remote participation where useful, and clear methods for resolving conflicting requirements.
Neurodivergent people may experience sound, light, movement, texture, crowding, and visual complexity differently. The article points to emerging OLIN Labs research on designing for neurodivergence, but it does not provide a dimensional standard or a universal sensory prescription. A responsible team should therefore test assumptions with the people who will use the place, offer choice rather than a single “calming” treatment, and avoid presenting a preliminary research direction as a finished specification.
Questions construction teams can ask
- Which activities must be possible independently, and where are users currently forced to request help?
- Are routes, thresholds, seating, shade, toilets, information, and emergency procedures usable by people with different mobility, sensory, communication, and cognitive needs?
- How will temporary conditions—detours, noise, dust, fencing, closures, and changing entrances—affect access during construction?
- Who will inspect accessibility after handover, and what remedy exists when the built result does not work as intended?
The forum report is not a technical standard. Use applicable building codes, accessibility regulations, and qualified specialists for dimensions, gradients, surfaces, hardware, and life-safety decisions.
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Queer histories belong in the public realm
Pridescapes and the meaning of overlooked places
Max Dickson, an OLIN landscape designer, described the firm’s Pridescapes community of practice as focusing on “untold queer histories and new queer futures.” The work asks whose memories a public landscape records and whose are made invisible by redevelopment, reconstruction, or a sanitized interpretation.
The article references the Hudson River Park piers in Manhattan and Chicago’s Belmont Rocks. These places carried particular meaning for LGBTQIA+ communities, yet development and rebuilding have obscured or changed that meaning. A project can preserve a physical structure while removing the social conditions that made it a refuge, meeting place, or site of collective memory.
Design and interpretation choices
Before demolition or reconfiguration, document how communities use a site—not only its formal program. Oral histories, community archives, artist-led research, and walks with local groups can reveal patterns absent from conventional surveys. Decide with those groups whether a history should be marked, restored, adapted, or protected from overexposure. Interpretation should not turn living communities into a decorative theme.
Construction logistics also matter. Lighting, sightlines, security practices, opening hours, surveillance, and the location of entrances can change whether people feel safe. A consultation that discusses a plaque but not those operational choices has not addressed inclusion fully.
A caution about reported violence figures
ASLA’s 2022 article reported that 50 Black transgender people were killed in the United States in 2021 and that 33 percent of those crimes occurred in public spaces. The article did not identify the original data publisher. Treat these as figures reported by ASLA, and verify the underlying source before using them as independently established statistics or building a quantitative safety claim around them. The ethical point remains clear without overstating the evidence: public-space design and management can affect exposure to danger, visibility, belonging, and access to help.
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Racialized planning and the distribution of value
From redlining and urban renewal to present decisions
April De Simone, a principal at Trahan Architects, connected her experience in the Bronx to redlining and urban renewal. Those histories shaped where investment went, which communities were displaced, and how environmental burdens and amenities were distributed. Their effects do not disappear when a project receives a new name or attractive materials.
De Simone urged practitioners to “reshape practice in order to reshape consciousness.” In practical terms, a team should examine the ownership, financing, land-use rules, displacement risk, maintenance burden, and expected beneficiaries of a proposal—not just its appearance at opening.
Community agency as an equity mechanism
De Simone also said, “We believe people in communities have agency as well. Harnessing that agency leads to equity.” The article describes Designing for Democracy, a nonprofit research and design initiative founded by De Simone and Victor F. “Trey” Trahan III, as pursuing a more democratic built environment.
Agency is stronger when residents can set priorities, reject options, select representatives, review contracts, and influence long-term governance. A meeting that asks residents to choose between two finished concepts may gather opinions, but it does not necessarily share power. Teams should publish what was heard, what changed, what could not change, and who made each final decision.
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De Simone’s statement, “There is a collective humanity in this cause,” is a reminder that equity is not a specialist add-on. It affects procurement, scheduling, relocation, maintenance, public communication, and the distribution of risk throughout a project’s life.
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A practical inclusion workflow for project teams
The forum discussion does not prescribe a construction method. The following workflow translates its principles into questions a client, designer, contractor, or public agency can use while retaining professional and legal review.
- Set an inclusion brief. Name the communities affected, the decisions open to influence, the constraints that cannot change, and the budget for participation. Assign a person with authority to coordinate the work.
- Map lived experience before fixing solutions. Combine site observation with paid conversations, accessible walks, historical research, and input from organizations representing disabled, neurodivergent, Black, LGBTQIA+, and other affected groups where relevant.
- Define decision rights. State who can recommend, approve, veto, or appeal. Publish a decision log so participation is not confused with control.
- Develop multiple options. Test circulation, sensory conditions, gathering, interpretation, security, construction phasing, and maintenance. Explain trade-offs in plain language and accessible formats.
- Protect meaning during construction. Plan for temporary access, communications, relocation of community activities, protection of valued elements, and respectful handling of archives or public art.
- Test with users. Use prototypes, mock-ups, trial routes, or staged operations where possible. Invite participants to identify problems before they become expensive changes.
- Measure accountability after opening. Set a review date, collect feedback, inspect access and safety under real conditions, and assign a funded process for corrections.
How the inclusion lenses differ
These lenses can be used together, but each asks a different accountability question. The table is an editorial synthesis of the forum discussion, not a scoring system supplied by ASLA.
| Lens | Primary question | Typical risk if omitted | Useful evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Professional representation | Who has authority in the room and who is missing? | Repeated decisions by a narrow professional network | Hiring, promotion, participation, and decision records |
| Disability and neurodivergence | Which environmental or operational barriers restrict participation? | Compliance-focused work that fails in lived use | Paid user input, accessible testing, post-occupancy findings |
| LGBTQIA+ history | What community meanings could redevelopment erase? | Sanitized places that remove refuge, memory, or belonging | Oral histories, archives, community-led interpretation |
| Racialized planning | How are land, investment, displacement, and maintenance burdens distributed? | New value for some residents alongside displacement or exclusion | Resident priorities, ownership and financing analysis, long-term governance |
What this evidence can—and cannot—support
Designing Greater Inclusion is a report of a forum, not a technical manual, project evaluation, or statistical publication. It does not establish dimensions, construction details, a universal consultation process, or performance results for a particular site. Apply current codes, accessibility law, safeguarding requirements, and specialist guidance to project decisions.
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesThe article is strong evidence for what the named speakers discussed and for the examples they described. The 1 percent and 69 percent student figures come from the 2021 ASLA Graduating Student Survey as cited by Marc Miller. The BlackLAN membership figure and organizational status are reported in the article’s 2022 account. The figures concerning Black transgender deaths and public-space location require verification against their original source before publication or policy use.
Inclusion checklist for a construction or landscape brief
- Have affected communities helped define the problem, not only comment on a preferred design?
- Are participation, interpretation, access testing, and community expertise properly funded?
- Does the team understand disability through environmental barriers and lived experience?
- Have neurodivergent sensory needs been explored without assuming one solution fits everyone?
- Could demolition, phasing, security, or redevelopment erase LGBTQIA+ histories or community uses?
- Have redlining, urban renewal, displacement, ownership, and maintenance burdens been examined?
- Are decision rights, unresolved disagreements, and reasons for final choices documented?
- Will the completed place be reviewed with users, with money and responsibility assigned for corrections?
Greater inclusion is achieved when these questions alter budgets, drawings, contracts, schedules, operations, and governance—not when they appear only in a project statement. As De Simone put it, changing practice is a way to change consciousness; giving communities genuine agency is how that change becomes visible in the places people share.
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