Pascale Sablan of Adjaye Associates | Cleveland Foundation Headquarters in Cleveland | Design Justice | Part 2
Courtesy of Adjaye Associates
Design Justice
In today’s episodes, I speak with architect, activist, and Associate at Adjaye Associates, Pascale Sablan. She shares with us her experience working on the Cleveland Foundation Headquarters as a designer at S9 ARCHITECTURE in New York. This project, located at the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 66th Street, is meant to be as open, transparent, and inviting as possible to foster an inclusive and welcoming environment.
More broadly, we discuss the topic of design justice and how that aims to challenge structural inequalities by centering marginalized individuals in community-led design practices. As Founder of Beyond the Built Environment, Pascale shares her vision of working to dismantle injustices in the built environment and advocating for equitable, reflectively diverse environments.
What is the relationship between design, power, and social justice? Join us on today’s episode as we discuss incorporating marginalized voices into the built landscape, learning more about the design process behind the Cleveland Foundation Headquarters, and Pascale’s personal journey working with S9 ARCHITECTURE.
“I was in an architecture history class and a professor asked me and another student to stand in a classroom of about 60 or so students. So we stood and he said, okay, these two will never become architects because they’re black, and because they’re women. And a few things hit me. One that a professor would say it, makes such a strong proclamation without even knowing my name or my capacity. Two that my peers would be so quiet and even accepting of this kind of prediction. And then three that in a classroom of 60 plus students, there was only two of us that were black women. And so that really started to kind of give a sense of my purpose.”
Courtesy of Adjaye Associates
About Pascale Sablan
Pascale Sablan graduated from Pratt and pursued a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design at Columbia University. During this time, she found her activist voice by defending her design ideas and implementing holistic design visions for the built environment. She is the 315th African American female architect in the United States to attain my architectural license. She has been awarded with the 2018 Pratt Alumni Achievement Award, the NOMA Prize for Excellence in Design and Building Design + Construction 40 Under 40 as well as being featured on the Cover of the September 2017 issue. As the recipient of the 2021 Whitney M. Young Jr. Award, she is a champion of women and diverse design professionals. Through her work, she has greatly enhanced the profession and broadened social awareness of the built environment by calling for design justice.
Courtesy of Adjaye Associates
Episode Timestamps
1:30 – Could you walk our listeners through what The Cleveland Foundation headquarters will look like once it's completed. What would they see as they walk through? What are they looking at? What are the major elements?
5:26 – When we talk in commercial real estate or for large institutional buildings like this, when we talk about timber structure, what does that mean? And why is that so unique and pioneering from what we currently typically do, which is steel or concrete?
8:00 – The neighborhood where The Cleveland Foundation is located is one that is subject to a land trust, which is a really big deal. Tell us more about that.
9:47 – Could you talk about that first interaction with Adjaye and how you became convinced that you wanted to work for a firm like Adjaye?
14:41 – You mentioned earlier the things that you've created or the products that you've helped build, like a great diverse library or exhibit series. Could you give a description of what each of them are and how you decided that you wanted to do them?
21:18 – What ways or thoughts would you like to interact with elected and appointed officials to advance these really important initiatives?
27:34 – What about our industry makes it challenging to be a mother and a very successful architect at the same time?
32:59 – For this next generation of designers and developers and other professionals in our industry, how do you hope that they approach their careers?
Connect with Pascale Sablan:
LinkedIn (Pascale Sablan)
Instagram (Pascale Sablan)
LinkedIn (S9 Architecture)
The Built Environment
Courtesy of Adjaye Associates
About your host:
Atif Qadir is the Founder & CEO of Commonplace, a technology company making it easy for commercial real estate professionals to find and use the $100B of real estate incentives given out every year in the US.
His work has been covered by Technology Review, The Real Deal, Commercial Observer, and Propmodo. He’s also a frequent speaker on the future of buildings and cities on popular industry podcasts and at conferences, including this past year at the Commercial Observer National DEI Conference, Yale AREA Conference, Columbia Real Estate Symposium, Open Data Week NYC and Austin Design Week.
About Commonplace
Commonplace is a founding sponsor of American Building. It is a 100% minority-owned, real estate technology company founded in 2020 to make financing social impact development projects across the US easier. It is funded by venture capital investors Hometeam Ventures, Park West Asset Management, New York Ventures and Shadow Ventures.
About Michael Graves
The world-famous design firm Michael Graves is also a founding sponsor of American Building. Its namesake, the iconoclastic designer Michael Graves, FAIA was a fierce advocate for people-centric design. His work defines a generation of American architecture and includes the Portland Building, the Humana Building and the Denver Public Library. The 1st season of American Building was filmed live at The Warehouse, his historic home in Princeton, New Jersey:
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