Parsons School of Constructed Environments is honored to host Deborah Gans, a distinguished professor, architect, and urban planner/designer. She will share her expertise on how good design can deliver enduring benefits to communities.

She collaborates with workforce and under-represented communities, public agencies and students on projects that address affordable housing, vacant land strategy, climate adaptation and our diversity of cultural assets. Over the years, she has often focused on places and people who face combined threats of climate change and socio-economic instability from New Orleans after Katrina to NYCHA East Harlem after Covid.

Her firm, Gans & Company likewise prides itself on its collaborative work across disciplines and with people. Current projects include an earth science learning garden addition for Brooklyn Children’s Museum with Nancy Owen’s Landscape and a limited equity coop land trust in Kingston New York with Garrison Architects. Gans & Company’s work has been exhibited at IFA Paris, RIBA London, and the US Pavilion of the Venice Biennial, the New York Historical Society and the Guggenheim. Their projects are found in the books Design Like You Give Damn, New Orleans Under Reconstruction, Concurrent Urbanities, and Hudson Modern among others.

This lecture is part of SCE's Fall 2025 Public Programs Series, learn more about other events by clicking here.