Kimberly Dowdell is a Detroit-based architect, real estate developer, and entrepreneur focused on revitalizing cities through sustainable housing, grassroots community engagement, and creative placemaking. A Detroit native, she returned home in 2015 to serve on the City of Detroit’s Housing and Revitalization team after professional experience in New York, Washington, D.C., and graduate leadership training at Harvard. A LEED Accredited Professional, Kimberly co-founded SEED (Social Economic Environmental Design) to advance socially, economically, and environmentally healthy communities, and established NOMA’s national community service initiative. Recognized as one of the top 100 leaders in Public Interest Design, her work is driven by a lifelong mission to improve quality of life in urban communities. This talk was delivered at a TEDx event independently organized by a local community.
AIA 2024 President Kimberly N. Dowdell called for more courage from those in the profession to strengthen the field in multiple dimensions to ensure the profession thrives. She also addressed her three #Morein24 pillars: more money for architects and value for industry clients, more members for AIA, and more mission toward a built environment centered on design excellence and improving people's lives.
How can real estate development and sustainable design promote equitable urban redevelopment? This challenge drives Kimberly Dowdell MPA ’15, an architect, developer, and educator focused on revitalizing cities like Detroit and mentoring future urban leaders.
Dowdell, delivering the 19th Annual John T. Dunlop Lecture by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, was a partner with a Detroit-based firm dedicated to equitable neighborhood revitalization, and a lecturer at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College. She was also the new president of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), aiming to increase the involvement of African-American architects, who are underrepresented in the profession.
In her lecture, Dowdell, who has managed over $100 million in assets, shared her experiences on creating safe and empowered neighborhoods for a brighter urban future.
Cocktails & Conversation is a series of dialogues about design that joins an architect with a critic, journalist, curator, or architectural historian to discuss current design issues. For this program, Kimberly Dowdell, AIA, 2024 President of the American Institute of Architects, engaged in a spirited conversation about her career and the future of architectural practice with Beatrice Galilee over a custom-crafted cocktail.
Organized by
AIANY Architecture Dialogue Committee
Event Date: October 4th, 2024
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