Katie Swenson is a nationally recognized design leader, researcher, writer, and educator, and a Senior Principal at MASS Design Group. Katie and I explore how love can be a power to transform the world. Katie shares how she has learned to think about and practice designing with love, and how designers can use love to help dismantle systemic injustices.

“Talking about Love gives us clarity. Love and abuse, or love and racism, or love and discrimination, fundamentally cannot coexist.” - Katie Swenson

2:10 Katie shares her earliest memories of architecture, and her path to becoming an architect, writer and community development expert.

10:30 Katie's shares her process of discovery. She unpacks what she meant when, in Design with Love, she said, “I naively thought that design could be the answer … it was my mistake to think that design by itself could solve a problem, without recognizing that it takes people, joining together and using many tools, including design, to support their community ... I realized this job didn’t require me to be an expert, it required me to be humble and a facilitator”.

12:00 Katie and I discuss parallels to the Hippocratic Oath in architecture, and how we design for the betterment of society.

13:40 Katie shares what shaped her understanding of architecture and design's role in “dismantling systemic injustice rather than contributing to its perpetuation," a passage from her book. She shared lessons from her seminar with April De Simone, Undesign the Redline, and discusses historic injustices in urban and rural areas.

20:00 Katie shares what she thinks we are currently getting right and getting wrong when it comes to designing to dismantle systemic injustice.

24:30 Katie shares what she sees as the role of love in design and why it is so important. Sharing definitions from Bell Hooks All About Love, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s studies on the Beloved Community as an achievable aim.

29:40 Katie shares the example of Franklin Square in Baltimore, Maryland from her book, Design with Love. She shares the stories of the community and what they created.

37:00 Katie shares a very different type of love story and her experience suddenly losing her fiancé in May 2017, and the book that came from that experience, In Bohemia.

40:00 Katie shares her final takeaways around how we design for connection.

I hope this episode can inspire and empower you to use Love and Design as forces for positive change.

If you want to find out more about Katie and her work at MASS Design, Enterprise Communities, and more, check out the links below:

Katie’s work at Enterprise Communities & The Rose Fellowship

Katie’s work at MASS Design Group

Katie’s book: Design with Love: At Home In America

Katie’s book: In Bohemia: Memoir of Love, Loss, and Kindness

Katie’s website