Public Interest Design in Practice

The Centre for Conscious Design

August 5, 2026 – 11:00 am

EST

11:00 am EST

5:00 pm CET

8:30 pm IST

12:30 am (August 6) ACT

1.5 hours

Online

This event is open to CCD Members and Partners

This Bridge event will bring together Public Interest Designers, Community-Driven Design Practitioners, Architects, and Social, Economic, Environmental Design accredited professionals to dive into the importance and practice of Public Interest Design.

Public Interest Design is community-led design and architectural practice where designers work directly with the community from the start and at all stages of the project’s process including post-build follow up and impact measurement.

The SEED Evaluator, an evaluation tool utilized in the practice of public interest design (PID), directly measures the impact of PID/SEED projects that have been certified – measuring the Social, Economic, and Environmental Design impact and outcomes.

This event is hosted by CCD Bridge Fellow, Desirée Gonzalez – Facilitator and Organizer of our Bridge Events. Desirée is the Founder/CEO of Restorative Design© (website coming soon!) and an Independent Consultant at Design Corps – architectural non-profit serving the underserved and leading the way in public interest design.

To learn more about PID, Design Corps hosts annual Structures for Inclusion conferences and trainings. This year’s conference will be taking place at the Center for Public Interest Design (CPID) at Portland State’s School of Architecture in partnership with CPID and PSU’s ITECK center and program. Design Corps has been working with Indigenous communities from around the world, and this year’s conference will focus on Indigenous Public Interest Design: Cultural Knowledge and Practices, taking place October 8 -10.

Jeremy Knoll, AIA LEED Fellow SEED AP

Associate Principal and Director of Sustainability at BNIM Design

About

Jeremy Knoll is an Associate Principal and BNIM’s Director of Sustainable and Regenerative Design. Jeremy guides project teams across BNIM to create positive impacts for human and building performance, develops new research and industry resources, and empowers staff, clients, and communities to take daily climate action. He has served as an integral design team member on numerous projects at BNIM, leading sustainability, building performance, and green building rating systems. Jeremy has been as an integral design team member on projects worldwide, leading sustainability, building performance, and green building rating systems. Among these projects includes the LEED Platinum certified collaborative office hub, Makers Quarter Block D in San Diego, CA; the LEED Platinum certified Bancroft School Redevelopment; the East Campus Framework and Master Plan at Washington University in St. Louis; and the Johnson County Facilities Sustainability Framework and Guidelines. Jeremy has a deep passion for green building, historic preservation, and social equity, and his dedication to climate action extends to his volunteer work as a regional climate policy advocate and Executive Board member for the USGBC Central Plains, Climate Action KC, and Design Corps.

Bryan Bell, SEED AP

Founder, Design Corps & the SEED Network

About

Bryan Bell founded Design Corps in 1991 with the mission to provide the benefits of design for the 98 percent without architects. His current work includes the SEED Network which he co-founded. He organizes the Public Interest Design Institute and the Structures for Inclusion conference series. Bell has published five books on public interest design. His work has been supported by the American Institute of Architects Latrobe Prize and through a Harvard Loeb Fellowship. Bell holds degrees from Princeton University and Yale University. He is a Professor Emeritus at the College of Design, North Carolina State University.

Ed Herrera

Associate principal at BRIC Architecture, specializing in K-12 school projects

About

Ed has worked in the architecture and design industry since 2001 and is an associate principal with BRIC Architecture. He manages complex K-12 school projects to ensure that the bond promises to the communities the firm serves are fulfilled. His driving force on educational projects is the belief that communities and students thrive in proper infrastructure. Ed pushes the agenda for better learning environments and support of educators and students.

Triveece Penelton, AICP, NOMA

Community Engagement Director at Vireo & Founder of Penelton Interactive

About

Triveece Penelton, AICP, NOMA, directs community engagement and long-range planning services at Vireo. She is also the creator of the Digicate® software application for community engagement. Triveece is a Founding Member and Advisor of Planning for Health Equity, Advocacy & Leadership (PHEAL) and an alumna of the Racial Equity Institute. Her work has won national and state awards for engagement, communications, and planning along with a NOMA NAACP Seed Award for Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) in Design. Triveece has over 20 years of experience. During 2022, she founded Penelton Interactive to provide leadership and professional development services to private and non-profit organizations. Triveece earned a Bachelor of Arts – Architectural Studies and Master of Urban Planning from the University of Kansas.

Desirée Gonzalez, MA, SEED AP, TiD-B

About

Desirée is a Social/Community Psychologist with a Master’s degree in Depth Psychology specialized in Community, Liberation, Indigenous, and Ecological Psychologies and is certified in Social, Economic, Environmental Design (SEED AP) and Trauma-Informed Design (TiD-B) as well as Ecological Landscape Design.

Her Master’s research focused on restorative justice and applying that to the built environment to create restorative environments and an applicable “restorative container” framework. As part of her research, she conducted a fieldwork study/praxis at a county jail where she worked with a group of women in custody to explore if it was possible to create a “restorative container” even in a place like jail (conditions of imprisonment/oppression), answering the research question “how might imagination play a role in the prison industrial complex schema abolition as a liberatory possibility”, which can be found in: Taylor and Francis’ Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community, Positive Psychology special edition. This study was the foundation of her current design work. She presented on this as a featured Plenary Panelist on Transnational and Local Struggles and Strategies and Paper Presenter at the Centre for Integrative Anti-Racism Studies of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto in March (2026).

Desirée is currently an Independent Consultant and former fellow/Project Manager at Design Corps. There, she led their Indigenous Pubic Interest Design Institute working with Indigenous Architects, Designers, Planners & Engineers from around the world. The Institute was held on October 24, 2025 and has led into monthly webinars throughout 2025 and 2026 as well as the in-person, international conference, Structures for Inclusion, at Portland State University (Center for Public Interest Design) – taking place on October 8, 9, & 10th 2026.

Furthermore, Desirée is an Instructor and consultant for Hausense Design where she taught a Masterclass/Course on Restorative Design from a Social Equity & Systemic Trauma-Informed Lens, and she has taught a webinar on this for Habitarmonia as well. She is now an Adjunct Professor at Unity Environmental University where she teaches courses on Applied Psychology and Biophilic Design.

Overall, her work lies at the intersections of Design, Psychology, and Social Justice, and she welcomes collaborations, partnerships, & consulting opportunities!