Toni L. Griffin

Toni L. Griffin

Toni L. Griffin’s career has spanned almost every scale that the practices of urban planning and design have shaped. Having begun her career as an architect with Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, eventually rising to the level of Associate Partner in the firm’s Chicago office, Griffin went on to work in city planning departments in Washington, D.C., and Newark, New Jersey. More recently, as an academic and the leader of her private practice, Urban Planning for the American City, Griffin is one of the nation’s leading pioneers for urban justice. Not only advocating for how cities can undo the historical damage of inequity, Griffin works to return her vast knowledge about how cities are built and operated to those who need it most, citizens living in marginalized communities.

Griffin’s work foregrounds justice as a key term for rethinking how we can improve cities. As Professor in Practice of Urban Planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Griffin leads The Just City Lab, an organization dedicated to addressing some of the most challenging issues facing contemporary cities by developing new tools and methodologies for assessing the role of design in achieving urban justice. As in all of Griffin’s work, The Just City Lab views design as a practice that engages with the legacies of disinvestment, abandonment, racial segregation, and environmental injustice, as well as the current participation of communities in the process of making cities. As terms to describe popular urban reform movements gain traction such as “the livable city,” “the green city,” and “the resilient city,” Griffin adds “the just city” to encompass the pressing social issues that should be taken into account in urban planning.

 

A crucial feature of how cities continue to be mired in legacies of inequity has to do with the separation between municipal processes and the communities most affected by urban planning. Griffin steps in to close the gap between communities, city policy makers, and the private sector, synthesizing her years of experience working at all scales of design to promote greater inclusion in the planning process. Through The Just City Lab, Urban Planning for the American City, her work as the Vice President and Director of Design for the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation in Washington, D.C., and her role as a strategic advisor to mayors and planning directors in cities such as Detroit, St. Louis, and Memphis, Griffin seeks to involve communities in expressing their needs during the processes of urban design.

The Just City Lab Exhibition at the Harvard Graduate School of Design as viewed from the library portico.

The Just City Lab Exhibition at the Harvard Graduate School of Design as viewed from the library portico.

Toni Griffin leading a workshop on equitable planning.

Toni Griffin leading a workshop on equitable planning.

Interactive Mapping: Annotating maps are a great way to create rich research documents.  Studied before and after a site analysis, maps provide ways to capture research findings in their on the ground location.

Interactive Mapping: Annotating maps are a great way to create rich research documents. Studied before and after a site analysis, maps provide ways to capture research findings in their on the ground location.

Presenting the Findings: Research investigations must be presented clearly to their audiences.  For designers this means using a range of visual representational methods from photographs, maps, drawings, collages, diagrams, and etc.

Presenting the Findings: Research investigations must be presented clearly to their audiences. For designers this means using a range of visual representational methods from photographs, maps, drawings, collages, diagrams, and etc.

On the Ground: For site specific research a site visit is one of the richest ways to gather key information.  For design in the built environment touring what has been built and engaging with the communities that live there is crucial in the design process.

On the Ground: For site specific research a site visit is one of the richest ways to gather key information. For design in the built environment touring what has been built and engaging with the communities that live there is crucial in the design process.

Griffin views her work as “rooted in change: change that is happening, change that is needed, or change that is being prevented.” When change confronts urban communities, especially those that consistently suffer when change occurs, Griffin knows the importance of helping communities become part of the process. The goal is to help communities share ownership in urban planning, to develop a collective vision of how their specific community understands urban justice. To activate participatory communication between communities and other stakeholders, Griffin employs a diverse range of information including anecdotal accounts, entertaining cartoons, and quantitative data. By furnishing communities with a large array of different kinds of information, people can come to a better understanding about how they specifically envision a better city.

Griffin views the hard work of community participation in defining urban justice as dependent on the specific conditions and needs of each community. While the issues of disinvestment, blight, abandonment, racial segregation, income inequality, and environmental justice are present in all cities, the specific needs and attentions of communities vary widely depending on their location. Griffin’s work helps communities that are used to being the object of urban change become active participants in the shaping of American cities.

The Just City Exhibition at the Center for Architecture in Manhattan, NYC.  Exhibitions, second to presentations, hold an opportunity to not only showcase research findings but engage larger audiences in a discussion to expand the conversation the exhibition is about.

The Just City Exhibition at the Center for Architecture in Manhattan, NYC. Exhibitions, second to presentations, hold an opportunity to not only showcase research findings but engage larger audiences in a discussion to expand the conversation the exhibition is about.

Education

Prior to beginning her work as an educator at the GSD, Griffin was Professor of Architecture and the founding director of the J. Max Bond Center on Design and the Just City at the Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York. With the J. Max Bond Center, Griffin released a set of metrics and indicators for evaluating the role of public spaces on urban justice, Public Life and Urban Justice in NYC’s Plazas. In 2016, President Barack Obama named Griffin to the Unites States Commission of Fine Arts. Griffin was the 2014 Visiting Associate Professor and Theodor B. and Dorsi Shoong Lee Chair in Real Estate Law and Urban Planning in the Department of Urban Planning at the University of California, Berkeley.

Sources:

All images courtesy of Toni Griffin

https://www.designforthejustcity.org

Toni L. Griffin, Ariella Cohen, and David Maddox, eds., The Just City Essays: 26 Visions for Urban Equity, Inclusion and Opportunity (New York: The J. Max Bond Center on Design and the Just City, 2015)

https://designobserver.com/feature/chain-letters-toni-l-griffin/39964

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/5/15/toni-griffin/