Since 2001, PennPraxis has been supporting community-led design and planning projects, and helping governments understand what people think and envision for the future. We are based in the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania, and we draw on the skills of faculty and graduate students in architecture, landscape architecture, planning, spatial analytics, historic preservation and fine arts.
We are unique among design schools. Our real-world projects allow graduate students and faculty to join forces with community and Indigenous leaders to solve pressing problems, with an average of 40 to 50 faculty and students contributing to and learning from diverse interdisciplinary projects every year.
to support community-led discovery, capacity-building, visioning, and self-actualization;
to cultivate potential in people and place;
to help communities shape, communicate, fund and realize catalytic projects;
to forge powerful, lasting alliances between community and student activists, and create opportunities for reciprocal, hands-on learning.
of communities, land, water, and all life;
of past, present, and future generations;
of perspectives, disciplines and systems in common projects.
As teachers, we are passionate about capacity-building, and helping people challenge the status quo.
Our interdisciplinary project teams create uncommon allies and resources to break new ground on complex challenges.
We are generous with our time.
We value the potential of students as change leaders and support youth in designing and building improvements to their communities.
PennPraxis, the City of Philadelphia and many of our projects were built on the homeland of the Lenape Nation, the inhabitants of our region for approximately 12,000 years prior to colonization and mass displacement to the north and west by Europeans. The ethics of the Lenape people—who have great appreciation for interconnectedness, sustainability, communal land, seasonal flux, and cultural landscapes—inspire our work. While many have been displaced, there are thousands of Lenape still living in and shaping our region. The Praxis team has learned about the culture and ceremonial landscapes of the Lenape through long collaboration with the Ramapough Lenape Turtle Clan in the New Jersey Highlands.
We lead and provide strategic support for projects that integrate flood protection, water quality and habitat with community development so we are not just strengthening coastal edges, but strengthening the whole community. We are experienced and energetic managers of interdisciplinary, community-driven resilience projects, and regenerative agriculture demonstrations that support farmers.
We see design as an art of negotiation that can form shared projects that fuse the interests of many publics. We develop physical designs at many scales from the courtyard of a public school to regional water and mobility infrastructure. We engage governments to advocate for the reallocation of resources and the development of innovative policies.
We analyze the creative economies and nightlife that are so critical to the vitality and of communities and cities. We develop policy frameworks that help government support creative workers, independent businesses, and nightlife districts, and that facilitate self-organization of creatives to protect the scene and to thrive as individual artists.
We collaborate with community and Indigenous leaders to explore ways that research and design can embody heritage in generative layers of a cultural landscape in order to deepen and diversify its identities, increase equity and economic access, engage new publics, and energize environmental action and community life.
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