Parts of Common: A Civic Forum on How Urban Interventions Empower Communities | DOD 2026

This event is free to attend. Due to capacity restrictions, registration is required. 

About the event: The inaugural Civic Forum, themed “Parts of Common,” is one of the free public programs curated by Assistant Professor Leyuan Li as part of the Common Ground Community Design Festival, a new collaborative civic design initiative launched by the Office of Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, the CU Denver College of Architecture and Planning, the Lavender Hill Cultural District, and the Denver Architecture Foundation.

The Civic Forum brings together three nationally recognized leaders in community-centered design, including Joseph Altshuler, Akima Brackeen, and Wendell Joseph, who has contributed to transformative civic initiatives such as Exhibit Columbus, the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival, and Envision Resilience. Following brief presentations by each speaker, the panelists will be joined by local design professionals and community leaders for a moderated conversation on the role of community-centered design in fostering more equitable and resilient cities. The discussion will be moderated by Assistant Professor Danny Wills. 

Run of Show: 

• 3:00 – 3:15pm Welcome and Introduction
• 3:15 – 4:00pm Presentations by Speakers
• 4:00- 5:00pm Moderated Conversations

About the speakers: Akima Brackeen is the director of Exhibit A, a design practice focused on investigating the social, political, and ecological dimensions of water access to reveal systems of power and care. Through design, art, and research, she examines material traces that shape perceptions and values within the built environment. Akima was awarded the Lily Auchincloss Rome Prize in Architecture by the American Academy in Rome and selected as a University Design Research Fellow for Exhibit Columbus. Her work has been exhibited at the Princeton University School of Architecture Gallery, Van Alen Institute, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.



Joseph Altshuler is cofounder of Could Be Design, a Chicago-based architectural design practice, and associate professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he teaches in the School of Architecture and the Department of Landscape Architecture. His teaching, practice, and scholarship explore architecture’s capacity to build lively audiences, initiate serious play, and amplify participation in civic life. Joseph is also the co-founder and Artistic Director for the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival, an award-winning annual public art and architecture platform. Joseph’s first book, Creatures Are Stirring: A Guide to Architectural Companionship (2022), invites readers to befriend architectural companions through essays, flash fiction, and case studies, illustrating solidarity among humans, nonhumans, and the built environment. Joseph’s newly released second book, Supergraphic Landscapes: From Public Art to Urban Design, co-written with Nekita Thomas, reimagines how graphics in the built environment can transform public space into places of connection, care, and collective memory.

Wendell T. Joseph is an urban strategist and transdisciplinary design practitioner with over a decade of experience in local government, higher education, and the private, non-profit, and philanthropic sectors. His portfolio of work spans neighborhood, district, citywide, and institutional plans, policies, and projects; community needs and benefits administration; public speaking and community engagement; retail real estate strategy and place-based research; and design education at the Boston Architectural College and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He currently serves as Design Studio Manager at Envision Resilience, where he leads a multidisciplinary, community-engaged design challenge focused on innovative planning and design responses to climate change.

Danny Wills is an architectural designer, educator, and researcher. His work advocates for multidisciplinary modes of practice that engage issues of material, context, and labor. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture from The Cooper Union, and a Master of Science in Design Theory and Pedagogy from SCI-Arc. He has lived, worked, and taught throughout Europe, Asia, South Africa and the US, building and managing several public and non-profit projects. In 2018, he co-founded Space Saloon, a design lab dedicated to situated research and community-focused workshops. Space Saloon’s activities include artist-in-residences with the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the MPavilion in Melbourne, leading international Visiting Schools for the AA School of Architecture, and building public pavilions for the 2024 Timișoara and Tbilisi Architecture Biennials as a LINA Europe Fellow. He is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Colorado, Denver.

About the curator: Leyuan Li is an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Colorado Denver and a visiting assistant professor of architecture at the Princeton University School of Architecture. He is a recipient of the Art Omi Architecture Fellowship and the MacDowell Fellowship. His research and creative work examine the agency of the interior as an infrastructure of care to address injustices embedded in urban landscapes. Together with his design practice, Office for Roundtable, he designs architectural projects and public installations that explore the ecological, political, and social dimensions of contemporary living crises. His work has been featured in various design platforms, including Fundación Arquia, New Generations, Dezeen, ArchDaily, PLOT, The Architect’s Newspaper, and New York Review of Architecture, and exhibited internationally at venues including the History Colorado Center in Denver, La Casa de la Arquitectura in Madrid, the Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism in Shenzhen, the São Paulo International Architecture Biennale, and the Timișoara Architecture Biennale.

Accessibility: The venue can be reached by stairs or elevator.

Please note that DAF tours take place rain, snow or shine. If your tour includes an outdoor portion, please dress for the weather. DAF staff will contact all attendees directly should a tour be cancelled for any reason.

Photo: Could Be Design, “Chicago Sukkah Design Festival,” 2022–26. Photo by Brian Griffin.