Human Design Moves the Future

Human Design Moves the Future is a one-day, interactive event engaging with how city residents can help shape the future of their neighborhoods. Hosted at the Design Build Green Hub in Southwest Detroit, this activation brings together builders, planners, residents, and artists for storytelling, discussion, and hands-on design activities rooted in the voices, histories, cultural assets, and lived experiences of the community.

Centering Southwest Detroit, in particular its Mexican and Puerto Rican communities, the event imagines alternatives to traditional top-down approaches to planning and development, based on the belief that design is not neutral. Through collaborative activities, participants will consider how human-centered design, cultural preservation, and inclusive development strategies can foster more equitable and resilient neighborhoods.

Reframing design as a collective, culturally-rooted process in which community-led design narrative building, and participatory planning practices as critical infrastructure for the future of cities. By activating the Design Build Green Hub Space, Human Design Moves the Future demonstrates how we can shape the built environment in ways that foster belonging, economic mobility, and long-term sustainability.

Design + Culture + Community + Belonging = Sustainable Futures.

UN SUSTAINABILITY GOALS

We use Detroit's UNESCO City of Design designation as a call to action for Detroiters to embrace the Sustainable Development Goals in their own communities, contributing to the active effort of solving global interconnected issues.