Design Advocates

Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Design Advocates, Community Service, Upper East Side, NY.

09/15/2025

We are so excited to share the new Upper East Side Community Refrigerator with the community! We celebrated the grand opening with a morning of volunteering in the Bronx and filling up the new refrigerator with fresh groceries in
the afternoon.

D/A worked with Grassroots Grocery, a non-profit that advances food justice by cultivating a community of neighbors helping neighbors. The collaboration is a result of two years of thoughtful design studies, community engagement, and careful coordination to provide a new structure that supports the on-going effort to provide dignified food access and fresh food to the community.

We are so grateful to be a part of this project and see the impact of a community committed to feeding each other and supporting each other.

This project was made possible through the partnership with , design by , fabrication by , construction by and , and support from
and our many volunteers.

D/A team of .works .method

Photography by .rekhi

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08/01/2025

Seedlings were already sprouting when we celebrated the Grand Opening of the new greenhouse in St. Nicholas Miracle Garden! 🌱 On June 14th our D/A team, with folks from Studio Makeshift and Studio For came together with members of the Central Harlem Community to celebrate completion and learn about the ongoing educational projects at the garden.

We are grateful to be a part of a project that will continue to serve as a model for educating growers about indoor and outdoor growing spaces, the utilization of solar power, water management systems, municipal water, and rain catchers. Thanks to our partners from Uptown & Boogie Healthy Projects, a non-profit that unites farmers and communities, for helping us facilitate this journey and ensure the future of the garden.

We are so excited to see this project thrive in a community committed to our shared principles of food access and justice, as well as the effort towards supporting local farmers in our city.

Come see it for yourself and learn more about the great work taking place in the garden!

Thanks to for capturing the greenhouse in all its glory.

07/19/2025

Summer Streets in Wheaton! Our July 19th edition of the Wheaton Streets Project brought the community together around a lush Great Lawn of fresh sod, tiered seating elements planted with native species, and our Balloon Pavilion made of weather balloons and parachutes painted and inscribed by local residents.

There were kids everywhere, a Pilates class on the grass, incredible food from local restaurants, and plenty of summer joy.

We’re just getting started building a culture of public, pedestrian open space in central Wheaton, bringing together outdoor dining, community programming, climate resiliency, and environmental justice in one-day installations that convert underutilized streets into community-forward urban space.

The next Wheaton Street Party is August 14. Hope to see you there!

The Wheaton Streets Project is a collaboration between and Design Advocates, with support from , , and local and state environmental and transportation agencies.

Design Advocates Team:
.architecture
🌿 Plants generously provided by

07/12/2025

Join us Saturday, July 26 to celebrate the grand opening of the Upper East Side Community Fridge!

We’ll kick off the morning by volunteering at ’s Produce Party, helping sort and pack fresh groceries for community fridges across NYC. Then we’ll head to NYCHA Holmes Towers to fill the newly fabricated UES fridge—designed for and with the community.

💪 Volunteer: grassrootsgrocery.org/join-us-saturday
📍 Fridge Location: NYCHA Holmes Towers, 1780 1st Ave, NY, NY 10128

In collaboration with
Design by
Fabrication by
Construction by
D/A Team: .works .method

06/17/2025

Attention DC Friends! The next community engagement for our resilient pedestrian plaza in Wheaton, MD will be a block party in Downtown Wheaton this Saturday, June 21! Please join us to enjoy local food and community groups, and a prototype planted seating installation by D/A that engages community members to gather and occupy the street. A partnership with and

05/14/2025

Street Vison. We are extremely excited to be kick starting a project to imagine the future of public place making integrating climate and small business resiliency, outdoor dining, performance, and public art in Montgomery County, Maryland just outside of Washington DC.

Step one: Collective visioning. Our first participatory visioning engagement took place at the Montgomery County Greenfest in Wheaton on April 26. Festivalgoers were asked to help to envision a new public space in their community through interviews and prompts given to our partners who filled the street with ideas generated by the crowd. This project is a partnership with , , , local, county and state agencies for planning, transportation, and environmental protection.

Our next engagement is June 21 in Wheaton where we will be creating an instant plaza that will be in use and programmed all summer long. Please join us! Additional details to follow.

A collaborative D/A initiative with .architecture, , , , and .

04/25/2025

Calling all Montgomery Country and Wheaton, MD residents to come and join us this Saturday from 11am-4pm at the annual Montgomery Country GreenFest!

We’re teaming up with to help the local community reimagine public space in downtown Wheaton. Please come chat with us about your experiences in this space and how we can transform the intersection of Price and Elkin into a more welcoming and friendly place.

is also joining us to create sidewalk art visualizing your ideas so if you like to draw, definitely join us! This a VERY family friendly event and we’ll be there rain or shine!

GreenFest 2025
Saturday, April 26, 11am-4pm
Marian Fryer Town Plaza
2424 Reedie Drive, Wheaton, MD
architecture

10/11/2024

Last night’s Art On The Concourse fundraiser was magical for so many reasons! We finally had our public opening of the Sound Pavilion project after almost 4 years in the making, heard from former Mothers about their experiences at CH as well as how the arts program has been pivotal in their growth and success, and reflected in our community all that we have and hope to share together. And then we were gifted with the beauty and awe of Aurora Borealis to top off our evening of joy in the CH garden!

09/12/2024

We are so excited to be talking about the first four years of Design Advocates, design for equality, collaborative practice, and our plans for the future at on September 30. 6:30 at 61 St James Place in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. Co-presented by . 1.5 CEUs are available. See the registration link in our stories!

07/13/2024

A great big thank you to of , D/A board members for kicking off our Engaged Practice discussion series this week, a collaboration with the AIANY Future of Practice Committee and . Hosted at , we are gathering thirty professionals at a time to talk about values oriented practice models over cocktails.

Architecture is a practice of constant engagement. This series of conversations, co-hosted by Design Advocates (D/A) and the AIANY Future of Practice Committee, is an opportunity to discuss ways of conceiving and designing these forms of engagement more critically.

The three sessions are structured to bring groups of practitioners together in conversation with invited guests and a moderator from D/A who present a relevant case study.

Client Engagement, Session 1
Clients usually initiate projects. But can a project initiate a client? This has been an important strategy for D/A and is one way that architects can work with more diverse project types. What is a client, who gets to be a client, how can architects work more productively with clients?

This first session was organized around our Concourse House project as a case study and explored strategies for running a values oriented practice that works outside the traditional pool of clients.

Speakers:
Alexandra Barker, FAIA, Design Advocates
Fauzia Khanani, Assoc AIA, Design Advocates
Jess Rolls, Concourse House

Moderated by Michael K. Chen, AIA, Design Advocates and Nicholas McDermott, AIA, Design Advocates

Photos by

07/08/2024

Architecture is a practice of constant engagement. Engaged Practice: A Conversation Series, co-hosted by Design Advocates (D/A) and the AIANY Future of Practice Committee, is an opportunity to discuss ways of conceiving and designing these forms of engagement more critically.

Join us as we bring groups of practitioners together in conversation with an invited guest and a moderator from D/A who will present a relevant case study. Our first session, this Wednesday, July 10th at 6:30pm, will focus on Client Engagement.

Clients usually initiate projects. But can a project initiate a client? This has been an important strategy for D/A and is one way that architects can work with more diverse project types. What is a client, who gets to be a client, how can architects work more productively with clients?

This session will explore strategies for running a values oriented practice that works outside the traditional pool of clients. It will touch on instruments of service and contract language that can support these goals. In addition to a D/A case study, we will be joined by Jess Rolls, Arts Program Curator at Concourse House.

Speakers:
Alexandra Barker, FAIA, Design Advocates
Michael K. Chen, AIA, Design Advocates
Fauzia Khanani, Assoc AIA, Design Advocates
Nicholas McDermott, AIA, Design Advocates
Jess Rolls, Concourse House

Address

Upper East Side, NY

Website

http://www.designadvocates.org/

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