Justice in design: do designers consider justice?

reportJustice-oriented design is a type of design practice that seeks to meet the needs of people by striving to create spaces that allow people to feel comfortable while providing opportunity, access, and dignity. Equitable design utilizes principles that apply to design, to create fair and sustainable outcomes for the people, socially, environmentally, and economically. Built design projects, when considered with a justice framework of social, environmental, and economic justice principles produces the ideal framework for sustainable design. Through my process of identifying components from research to create my justice-oriented criteria for design, I have composed a detailed framework of concepts, components, and subcomponents, or measures that provide specific best practices for design to put into action that indicate the relevance of the components. Through the process of conducting qualitative interviews of (9) designers, architects, landscape architects, and other professionals, I have come to understand the process that built-environment professionals experience in designing or in selecting a site. As I identify a measure or specific action in regards to a project, I can understand the concepts and larger dimensions they considered in their process. Providing design with equity produces highly sustainable outcomes for design projects. These best practices do not suggest a need for the entire criteria framework but rather provide insight as to particular equitable aspects that could be prioritized in design projects. As designers consider justice early on in the design process of small-scale design projects, they will in turn design more desirable spaces, with greater opportunity and comfort for all people, of all ages, and incomes