Thomas Mann Fellow and architecture journalist Friederike Meyer and Sergio Palleroni, Director of the Centre for Public Interest Design in the School of Architecture at Portland State University, met at the Thomas Mann House to discuss the potential of public interest design.

The work of city planners and architects worldwide has come under pressure. A lack of affordable housing, climate change and migrant movement challenge the traditional image of the architect as designer of objects in the built environment.

The term Public Interest Design expands the practice of architecture and design towards a multidimensional process that addresses issues such as disaster preparedness and recovery, scarcity of food and water as well as shelter. During her Fellowship at the Thomas Mann House, the architecture journalist and author Friederike Meyer explores how planning structures and strategies can support new forms of living together in changing heterogenous societies.

Sergio Palleroni, director of the Center for Public Interest Design in the School of Architecture at Portland State University and Thomas Mann Fellow Friederike Meyer discuss how architects and planners can re-engage with society to meet the needs of increasingly diverse communities and how public interest design can create a healthy, resilient and sustainable living environment.

A recording of the conversation will premier on our YouTube channel on 10th of September at 10 am (PT).

Friederike Meyer studied architecture at the RWTH Aachen and at the University of Washington in Seattle and was trained at the Evangelische Journalistenschule in Berlin. Today, she works as an architecture journalist in Berlin exploring the intersection of architecture, urban planning and society. From 2000 to 2017 she was editor of the architecture journal Bauwelt; for several years she has been working as an author, moderator and lecturer for architectural communication. Since 2017 Friederike Meyer has been editor-in-chief of BauNetz Meldungen. Together with Doris Kleilein she coedited “Die Stadt nach Corona” and “Post-pandemic Urbanism” published at Jovis, 2021.

Sergio Palleroni is Professor and director of the Center for Public Interest Design in the School of Architecture at Portland State University and co-founder of PSU's Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative. He also serves as a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Sustainable Solutions and is a founding member and faculty of the federally funded Green Building Research Lab at Portland State University. He received his M.S. in Architectural Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research and fieldwork for the last two decades has been in the methods of integrating sustainable practices to improve the lives of underserved communities worldwide.