Event Pass Information Event Pass TypePriceQuantity In-Person - Student with Valid IDFREE 0 1 2 3 4 In-Person - General Public$15.00 USD 0 1 2 3 4 Event Details This second Dialogue of the Designing for Public Life series, featuring Georgeen Theodore (Interboro), Josh Langham (NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene), and Benjamin Gilmartin (AIA New York), reflects on the values of long-term partnerships between designers, city agencies, and community partners to promote public health and joy in New York City’s outdoor spaces. Beginning in 2020, Interboro partnered with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) to promote active design through the development of public space projects. Building off of the DOHMH’s placemaking program, Interboro helped connect typically disparate, short-term public space interventions with larger and longer-range planning initiatives in the Southern Boulevard neighborhood of the South Bronx. Starting with robust community engagement and careful observation of the neighborhood, Interboro developed health-oriented public space interventions that aligned community priorities with the DOHMH’s expanding Active Design program and the Department of City Planning’s Southern Boulevard Neighborhood Plan initiative. One of these interventions, The Refreshing Waters, was a temporary outdoor cooling center adjacent to the New York Public Library’s Hunts Point branch. Working closely with Southeast Bronx Community Organization (SEBCO), Interboro turned the Tiffany Street plaza into a refreshing place to stay cool while the library and other indoor cooling centers were closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project acted as a prototype for a low-tech, outdoor alternative to air-conditioned indoor cooling centers. The team developed multiple iterations of the cooling station, as well as other interventions that mitigate environmental stressors in the built environment. This event will begin with a brief presentation by Langham, who will provide an overview of the City’s Active Design program. Theodore will present a series of cooling stations and other pilot projects connected to health and public life that were done in collaboration with NYCDOHMH. Gilmartin, AIANY 2025 President, will moderate a discussion among the participants and questions from the audience about the work presented. Speaker: Georgeen Theodore, FAIA, Principal and Co-Founder of Interboro Partners Josh Langham, Director, NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Moderator: Ben Gilmartin, AIA, Partner, Diller Scofidio + Renfro; 2025 President, AIA New York About the Speakers: Josh Langham, is the Director of Active Design at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. His work focuses on increasing opportunities for physical activity and overall health through the design of the built environment. Josh’s multi-agency and cross-disciplinary projects and programs aim to implement Active Design strategies in citywide policies and initiatives. He oversees the implementation and evaluation of the unit's Active Design in Schools and Placemaking programs and is currently leading the update of the City's Active Design Guidelines. Georgeen Theodore is an architect, urban designer, and professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture and Design, where she coordinates the Master of Urban Design program. Theodore is a founder and principal of Interboro Partners, a multi-disciplinary firm offering inventive and inclusive planning, urban design, and architectural design services. Interboro’s work is founded on good listening, keen observation, and productive community engagement, using a participatory, place-specific approach to create consensus around complex projects ranging from buildings, parks, and open spaces to neighborhood, city, and regional plans. Benjamin Gilmartin, is a Partner at Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) in New York, and led public space projects for the Lincoln Center Redevelopment, and collaborated on the design of the High Line in New York and Zaryade Park in Moscow, among many other public space projects. Gilmartin is the 2025 AIA New York President. About the Series: Organized by the AIANY Cultural Facilities, Global Dialogues, and Planning and Urban Design Committees, Designing for Public Life: The Dialogues is a series of six Spring-Fall 2025 programs expanding on the forum established by 2024’s series Belonging and Beyond: The Future of Public Space and Art. The 2025 conversation series examines the forces reshaping both our contemporary public life and the physical spaces being designed to support it. New York City has always had a unique energy and tempo to its public life—a dynamic, human pulse visible in our streets, parks, subways, squares, and waterfronts. This vitality is the resilient force of our shared creative, cultural, social, and civic lives. Historically, the city has built its large public spaces— from Central and Prospect Parks (Olmsted) to Jones Beach (Moses) and Lincoln Center—as places that express the abundant human energy of New York public life. The late 20th century initiated an era of conversion of former industrial waterfronts and infrastructure into new forms of public space that in the 21st century prompt renewed, creative solutions for public life. As in the past, our shared life today in public space intersects with and reveals our most urgent collective challenges. Hurricane Sandy made visible the climate crisis. Black Lives Matter demonstrations exposed the crisis of structural racism. Homelessness in the five boroughs divulges a deepening housing affordability crisis. Cross-disciplinary collaborations can help us identify these blind spots and think holistically about the interconnected issues of our shared environment. In our role as citizens, we can advocate for greater equity, health, and justice within the common spaces of our communities. In our professional capacity as designers, we listen carefully and articulate strong artistic visions that serve the greater good. We must conjure vibrant in between spaces that embody the principles of inclusivity and connection—distinctly urban settings that promote joy, active lifestyles, and peaceful assembly. In this pivotal moment, we can reimagine New York’s public spaces—the theaters of our public life—to be places of belonging that are lively, distinctive, engaging, and welcoming to all. Additional programs in this series will be announced in the coming months, exploring the following broad themes with distinguished speakers. What forces are creating new large-scale public spaces across the five boroughs, and who are its current champions? How are these spaces addressing questions of health, safety, equity and inclusiveness among New York City’s many communities? How are public spaces becoming our infrastructures for both climate and social resiliency? Learn more and consider donating to the 2025 President’s Circle, which supports programming related to Gilmartin’s theme, “See You IRL: Designing for Public Life.”