Design Assistance Teams: Six Decades of Community Impact

The Architects Foundation’s Design Assistance Team (DAT) program brings together volunteer professionals and citizens to build strategies that solve the most pressing issues facing the places we call home. DATs represent one of the most impactful investments ever made in communities by the architecture profession and one of the most influential investments ever made in urbanism. The program has a six-decade track record of demonstrated success with tens of thousands of volunteers and citizens working hand in hand to benefit communities. Today, the initiative has included direct work in over a dozen countries across 5 continents, including communities in 47 US states. It has profoundly impacted how our profession approaches communities, with its methodology widely adapted to fuel thousands of additional processes and a global participatory urban movement in recent decades. This session will introduce the core elements of the methodology that have made the program so impactful and describe the 2027 Call for Applications process.

Register here.