Throughout her career, Professor of Architecture Sally Harrison, AIA has always focused her teaching and practice on the connection between social justice and how it inherently interacts with creativity and the built environment. 

In her view, public spaces can project inequality and architecture often informs the way people think and work when faced with community issues. Her ethos reflects the human aspects of community and design and how they interact to support each other. 

Harrison’s thinking has greatly influenced the Philadelphia architecture community and made her an obvious choice for the Community Design Collaborative’s 2021 Leverage Award, given during its 30th Anniversary celebration in June. 

Presented to the Collaborative’s 20 founders online, the award recognized those who have long supported creative and synergistic design in Philadelphia and beyond. 

Harrison feels honoring the founders was timed appropriately, and reminisced about how, during the Collaborative’s early days, they were “young, idealistic, self-proclaimed ‘anarchist architects.’” She’s proud of how their professional volunteerism has evolved and withstood the last three decades to help Philadelphia’s ever-changing landscape thrive. 

Founded in 1991, Community Design Collaborative provides pro bono preliminary design work to nonprofit organizations in the greater Philadelphia area and prides itself on playing a key role in the city’s continuous growth. 

Harrison spoke about the overarching question of inequity in Philadelphia and discussed how this isn’t an issue that architects and creators can solve themselves, but rather play an essential role in opening dialogue about how to think on a broader scale in order to solve this problem. Engaging conversations about inequity makes the issue more apparent to those who aren’t affected by it, urging them to be a part of the solution, she said. 

Of the award, Harrison reflected, “I was so honored and humbled to receive the Leverage Award. It recognizes leaders who have worked in developing the community design field – not just architects — but also policy-makers, planners, funders, community organizers and thought leaders. It takes a range of actors to build and support a field that has emerged from a marginal status to the center of urban practice and discourse. The idea of leverage is meaningful; it suggests that to make significant contributions to creating more just and humane environments we do not operate unilaterally, but use our particular skills and creativity to advance a collective goal.” 

Along with serving on the Collaborative’s Advisory Council, Harrison is Director and Co-Founder of The Urban Workshop, a university-based collaborative that undertakes research, design, and design-build projects in areas where social justice, creative expression, and community building are key components. 

The Urban Workshop places students directly into the communities where there is a need for outreach. The projects feature longer-term trajectories as opposed to her work with the Collective, which follows specific, time-sensitive design parameters. "Through the Urban Workshop, I have taught design studios and seminars in which students work directly with communities, using their skills in design-thinking, research and representation to identify problems and, in collaboration with our community partners, find solutions,” Harrison said. “Immersed in this complicated world, students recognize both the limitation of design, but also their agency in a collective effort to make change. It has been deeply satisfying to see former students as professional participants in the projects sponsored by the Collaborative.” 

You can find a link to Harrison’s acceptance remarks here.