Paul D. Bauknight Jr.
President/Founder The Center for Transformative Urban Design
NOMA
Topic Overview: Spatial Justice
Bio:
Paul D. Bauknight Jr. is a Spatial and Design Justice advocate, activist, urbanist, practitioner, and educator. The founder and president of the Center for Transformative Urban Design. The Center is a national inter-disciplinary design justice studio dedicated to the inclusive and equitable development of cities, neighborhoods and towns through knowledge building, policy change, diversification of the design professions and equity in real estate development. The host of the national podcast My Black Space - Power, Place, Justice Paul regularly engages with national experts of design justice, equity in real estate development, community engagement and spatial justice. Seeing the need to develop more capacity in the design and development professions around spatial justice he developed the spatial justice cohort program. A national online program now operating in Minneapolis, Portland and Seattle to educate practitioners in spatial justice.
A graduate of Virginia Tech in architecture, he has worked in community-based design and development for over 30 years. He is passionately committed to working at the intersection of social, cultural, economic, and spatial systems creating solutions that are equitable, steeped in place and benefit each community. He has held leadership positions at the Minneapolis Parks Foundation, the African American Men project, and Housing in Action.He is the principal designer for numerous signature North Minneapolis projects. As the convener for Minneapolis/St. Paul Reimagining the Civic Commons (RCC), he leads the Cities’ participation in RCC; a national learning network of cities using civic assets as platforms for social and economic change.
As the Spatial Justice and Social Equity fellow in residence with GGN landscape architect, he focused on new models of practice and project delivery that enable GGN and other design firms to create a more equitable built environment. Paul is the Civic Scholar in Residence and an instructor in the Master of Art and Cultural Leadership Program Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) where he is focusing on the intersection of physical and social/political systems. He is a sought-after speaker locally and nationally and has presented at numerous conventions and convenings including the AIA, ASLA, NOMA and the International placemaking convention. He is a member of the board of Environmental Initiative. Paul continues to engage diverse constituencies, communities, organizations, and leaders on the local and national level always advocating for more just and equitable communities.