The Building Equity Standard
Advancing equity through the design of our buildings, spaces, and communities.
Translating community insights into design solutions.
The Building Equity Standard supports equitable, creative, and collaborative placemaking. This certification program outlines frameworks and adaptable design guidelines to achieve the shared equity goals of communities and end-users.
Create Value with the Building Equity Standard
The Building Equity Standard supports community-engaged design, helping businesses, organizations, and owners to:
Enhance end-user satisfaction, improve project quality, and maximize the use of their properties, read more here.
Create a stronger sense of community which boosts goodwill and public support for projects.
Demonstrate leadership in social responsibility and equity—a growing requirement in public ESG and GRESB reporting, as well as RFP procurements.
Derived from Research
The Building Equity Standard is informed by targeted universalism, a policy framework from the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley. Targeted universalism champions the position that achieving shared societal goals through tailored solutions will improve the livelihoods of all groups and individuals.
To develop the Building Equity Standard, case study research guided by targeted universalism was conducted of four real-world projects. Key deliverables included the Building Equity Goals© framework and the Building Equity Design Guidelines© which reflect the priorities of groups and individuals marginalized by design.
The Building Equity Goals
A key building block of the Standard is the Building Equity Goals© framework, which includes high-level principles that should be considered during the design of any project.
The Building Equity Guidelines
The Standard offers a set of 50+ Building Equity Design Guidelines that are intentionally open-ended to reflect the unique needs, priorities, and values of end-users and community members within the context of the project at hand.
The application of the Building Equity Design Guidelines will look different for each project based on the input received from the community-engaged design sessions. The Building Equity Guidelines are organized into 3 categories—Site and Project Planning, Architecture, and Programming—and 11 focus areas.
The table below provides an organizational overview of the guidelines. For the complete list, click here.
Building Equity Partners
We are thrilled to be supported by an early cohort of Building Equity Partners who are committed to helping drive research, industry adoption, and further general development of the Standard.
