Shaping Intentional and Equitable Spaces in Baltimore and Beyond

March 21, 2025 – 2:00 pm
EST
2:00 pm
EST
CET
IST
ACT
400 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD 21201
Event Recordings

During the Conscious Cities Festival–where designers, researchers, technologists, decision makers, and local communities converge to explore the intricate relationship between the built environment and human flourishing–the Conscious Baltimore chapter and the International Arts + Mind Lab are working together to facilitate an enriching and compelling conversation that will aim to answer the question:
How can we shape the built environment with greater intention and how might that look in Baltimore, Maryland?

On March 21, we will bring a diverse group of researchers and practitioners together to join this conversation. Experts working nationally will speak alongside local leaders about efforts to consciously shape places that enrich lives and help people flourish. Through this event, we will aim to understand the importance of intentional, meaningful, and conscious design; illustrate how community builders are applying these approaches to their practice; and celebrate the opportunities for cultivating just and welcoming communities with intentional design.

Speakers:

COLIN ELLARD |Professor of Psychology and Director of the Urban Realities Laboratory, University of Waterloo
AVA RICHARDSON | Director of Sustainability, Baltimore Office of Sustainability
HEIDI THOMAS | Principal, Creative Director + Worker Owner of EnviroCollab

IN-PERSON ATTENDEES:

Enoch Pratt Free Library | 400 Cathedral Street Baltimore, MD 21201

2ND Floor

VIRTUAL ATTENDEES:

Microsoft Teams | Join the meeting now

Meeting ID: 253 244 803 411

Passcode: J7xk6Kp2

Hosted by

Organised by

Colin Ellard is a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Waterloo and director of its Urban Realities Laboratory.  Ellard works at the intersection of urban and architectural design and experimental psychology.  He has developed a novel set of methods by which the human response to the built environment can be measured using a toolkit consisting of both traditional psychological methods and sensor-based measurements of physiology and brain function.  Ellard publishes his work frequently in the peer-reviewed scientific literature but he also engages in extensive knowledge mobilization work involving collaboration and partnership with architects, museums and other NGOs. He travels widely giving keynotes for groups interested in architecture, design, and planning.  Ellard is an Urban Design and Mental Health Fellow, a Salzburg Global Fellow and an editor of the Journal of Environmental Psychology and the Journal of Urban Design and Mental Health. Ellard’s most recent book is Places of the Heart (Bellevue Literary Press, 2015).