Lectures

As events worldwide have demonstrated, we are living during exceedingly challenging times, characterized by divides, distrust and distancing. However far apart we have been, however far apart we currently are, we need to learn to come together, to be together, to act together, for social, economic, and environmental justice. The events on campus and off can bring better understanding of the injustices that exist and become a catalyst to bring about real change for all.

Along with many of our colleagues in New York City and around the world, the faculty and staff of the Center for Buildings, Infrastructure and Public Space would like to add our voices to those decrying institutional racism in the AEC industry. Today our industry has challenging work ahead, to achieve true racial and gender inclusion. We need to stand with our architects, engineers, contractors, and suppliers, from under-represented and marginalized communities

We need to listen better, to learn better, and to incorporate the lessons of diversity and distress into the way we, working together, can reshape economically challenged communities. We need to build a better future for our industry, characterized by respect, opportunity, and collaboration.

In 2020, the CBIPS lecture series, 'Social Justice and the AEC Industry' served as a mechanism to come together to discuss what could be done by engineers, architects and construction professionals, in concert with community activists, elected officials, public agency heads and private sector leaders.

The series started on Tuesday, 9/22/20, with Justin Garrett Moore, then Executive Director of the NYC Public Design Commission, talking about his work with the BlackSpace Collective in a lecture titled “Design and Difference.” The second talk, on Tuesday, 9/29/20, by Mindy Thompson Fullilove, MD, a social psychiatrist, addressed some of her ideas about public space coming out of the research for her book “Main Streets: How a City’s Heart Connects Us All.” And on Tuesday, 10/6/20, Kerry Scott, Global Practice Leader for Social Inclusion at Mott MacDonald, will join us by Zoom from London to talk about inclusion in the AEC Industry. The series continued every Tuesday at noon into mid-November of 2020. The issues remain just as relevant now in 2024.

CBIPS was pleased to collaborate on this open-to-the-public Zoom series with other professional organizations, including: ACEC New York, AIA New York, Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization (CSU), Engineering News-Record (ENR), the National Academy of Construction (NAC) and nycoba|NOMA.