Tufts University Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning and Shareable co-present this ongoing free lecture series hosted by Professor Julian Agyeman (chair of Shareable’s board).
In this edition, Emma Osore, Executive Director of BlackSpace, will discuss how community cultural leaders can shape more just and resilient neighborhoods.
What if the most effective designers of a neighborhood are already embedded within it? Designing with Aunties and Artists reframes community development by highlighting cultural producers and trusted community caretakers as key partners in building imaginitive, resilient, inclusive places, especially during periods of neighborhood stress or transition. Drawing on ten years of leading BlackSpace, this talk offers practical insights into culture-first approaches that help organizations design more durable, trusted, and community-aligned projects.
Emma Osore (she/her/hers) is a Brooklyn-based community and participatory designer. She organizes designers, artists, and futurists to radically re-shape public policy and practice. As co-founder and Executive Director of BlackSpace, she centers justice and joy in public design through education, capacity building, and public projects. In her 10-year tenure, BlackSpace has invested $1M+ in local projects fighting Black cultural erasure, hired 50+ young studios onto community co-designed projects, engaged 6,000 people in design education, and reached over 22M with original liberatory design tools that have been cited in NYCs Active Design and Environmental Justice Guidelines. In 2026, BlackSpace received AIANY’s New Perspectives Award and in 2021 was named Fast Company’s Most Innovative in Architecture.
