The HKS LADF Design Charette challenges teams made up of students and professionals to solve issues affecting the greater Los Angeles community.
HKS LADF
The HKS LA Design Fellowship is a group of multidisciplinary designers that strives to push design innovation, stimulate intellectual conversations and provide opportunities for community and academic partnerships.
LADF Design Charette
Every other year, the HKS LA Design Fellowship has an open call to local college students and HKS employees to participate in a three-day design charrette at the HKS Los Angeles office. Teams made up of students and professionals are given a design challenge to solve in three days with practical design solutions and strategies.
Design challenges are shaped around solving issues affecting the greater Los Angeles community. At the end of day three, each team is given the opportunity to present their concepts to a panel of local community leaders from different industries.
The Benefits
- Design-research based concept charette
- Diversified group of participants
- Learn and share knowledge/skills with other students and HKS professionals
- Provoke thought and discussion addressing real-world scenarios and the future
- Networking opportunities
- Desk crits from industry experts
- Final review from a panel of local community leaders
- Post-Charrette (potential exhibition and publication outcomes)
2019 Design Charette
The LADF's inaugural event was the 2019 Design Charette, which brought students and professionals together to solve issues that LA will face when hosting the 2028 Olympics. Design Charette events will take place every other year, the next event will be in 2021
2019 LADF Fellows
Josue I. Alvarez (Woodbury), Nuti Dave (UCLA), Yue Di (UCLA), Stephanie Green (Woodbury), Christy Hernandez (Woodbury), Kristi Hsiao (HKS), Jiawei Ji (USC), Yiren Lu (USC), Matthew Negrete (Woodbury), Christina Shin (USC), Andrew Smith (HKS), Jennie Sun (HKS), Joshua Tooill (HKS), Jiajie Jessica Wang (UCLA), Haoren Xu (USC), Bo Zhu (USC)
Panelists
Christopher Hawthorne (LA City Design Chief), Doris Sung (USC Professor/ founder of DOSU Studio), Brad Cox (Trammel Crow Senior Managing Director), Bruce McKinley (ARUP Principal Engineer), Geoffrey von Oeyen (USC Professor, founder of Geoffrey von Oeyen Design)
HKS Mentors
Yoosang Ahn, Thom Greving, Julie Hiromoto, Saurabh Shrestha, Vince Tam, James Warton, Greg Verabian
2019 HKS LADF Committee
Diana Tang (Chair), Adaeze Cadet, Beau Eaton, Manzer Mirkar, Daniel Opera, Bryan Rincon, Jennie Sun,
About HKS
We've become an interdisciplinary global design firm by expanding our team beyond architects and interior designers to include researchers, urban designers, nurses, anthropologists, graphic designers and more. At HKS, we view design as a process of discovery. Design research enables us to experiment, to improve — and to design smarter solutions. That’s particularly important as we strive to create a more resilient future.