Up this month (err, this Friday!) is Katherine Darnstadt, the architect and principal behind Latent Design. Our theme this month is Climate. After debating the many interpretations of the idea, the CM CHI team agreed that Katherine’s holistic, collaborative, and community-centered approach to architecture and urban design — considering the social, economic and environmental context of every project — made her the ideal person to hand the mic to.

Katherine and her team have tackled projects ranging from repurposing the 1970’s wood paneling of the transforming Chicago Women’s Health Center to outlandish placemaking in Union Station to manifesting sustainable ways to transport healthy food to local food deserts with the Fresh Moves Mobile Produce Market.

We asked Katherine a few questions to get to know her even better.

What drives your desire to create?
To use design as a tool to create a built environment that is equitable and to design for gaps in the critical social, political and visual infrastructure of the city.

How does Chicago influence you?
Watching, reacting and designing around the power structures of the city as they shift and invert.

What are you most proud of, professionally or otherwise?
I am most proud of the projects that were the first prototypes that ultimately influenced a larger design system. Our mobile market project has been replicated across the US and Canada, we recently completed a youth maker space that was a prototype for a national organization, and will be launching a city wide public space initiative. 

I am proud of every project we have designed and immensely fortunate to have worked with and now employ such thoughtful designers. But at the same time, there are opportunities to critically evaluate and learn from the projects, which I dwell on more than the celebration.

What role does collaboration play in your creative process?
We collaborate to create a process that is porous and allows for multiple points of influence, comment and alteration. It is central to our participatory and community based designs, and without collaboration, it becomes a top down dictatorial design process.

What does this month’s theme – climate – mean to you?
The title of my talk is “Let’s Not Talk About The Weather”…

That talk title just might be my favorite so far. If you feel the same, don’t forget to register tomorrow morning!

xo
Rusty