Detroit Collaborative Design Center

Ceara O’Leary, AIA, is a Co-Executive Director at the Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC), where she leads collaborative community design and planning projects citywide alongside neighborhood partners. She is also a Professor of Practice at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture and Community Development, teaching public interest design and community development courses. Ceara’s professional work, teaching, research and speaking focus on inclusive design of community spaces, ranging from building renovations and open space design to neighborhood plans and citywide infrastructure strategy. Ceara joined the DCDC in 2012 as an Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellow. She is a past Chair of the AIA Housing and Community Development Knowledge Community Advisory Group, was named a “Top Urban Innovator” by Next City Vanguard in 2015, and completed a fellowship with the ULI Larsen Center for Leadership. Previously, Ceara worked with bcWORKSHOP in the Lower Rio Grade Valley and the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio in Biloxi, Mississippi. Ceara graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with Masters degrees in Architecture and City & Regional Planning and she earned her undergraduate degree from Brown University. 
 

Christina Heximer is the Co-Executive Director of the Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC) at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture & Community Development (SACD) and adjunct faculty in the school’s Master of Community Development (MCD) program. Christina graduated from the University of Michigan is 2002 with a Master of Architecture and a Master of Social Work with a focus in community organizing and social systems. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Miami University.

She has worked at DCDC since 2002, and she has taught in the MCD program since 2009. While at the DCDC she has worked on a large variety of community engaged design projects, and she helped shape the center’s engagement process. Christina directs DCDC’s architecture and other small-scale projects. She has also served on the Design Committee of the Southwest Detroit Business Association and the board of directors for Inside Southwest Detroit. She is currently a member of the board of director’s executive committee for Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision. Her focus is in community development, participatory community design methods, and social justice as it relates to the physical environment.

Charles Cross, ASLA, is the Director of Landscape and Urban Design at the Detroit Collaborative Design Center and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture & Community Development (SACD). He serves as the faculty advisor to the National Organization of Minority Architecture Students (NOMAS), and as an advisor to students in the Master of Community Development (MCD) program. Charles holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture from Western Michigan University, a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture and a Master of Urban Design degree from The City College of New York. He has experience in the public sector, having worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Michigan Department of Natural Resources as well as past private sector work with SmithGroup/JJR, Elizabeth Kennedy Landscape Architects and Mary Miss Studio. Charles is a 2018 Fulbright-Hays Fellow. 

Charles has been a guest critic, co-taught studio, lectured, and supported student projects at universities across the United Sates and Canada. His research interests include cultural asset mapping in African American, Afro Brazilian and Afro Cuban communities; the Midwest geography its role in the Underground Railroad, and the Detroit River as a threshold to freedom. Charles regularly contributes to the design profession through presentations, competition juries and lectures throughout North America. His work has been published and exhibited nation wide. He has facilitated design workshops, charrettes and planning engagement efforts with community stakeholders, faith based organizations and youth groups. 

Charles serves on multiple committees, boards and advisory councils. He has participated on panels with the Rose Center on Public Leadership/National League of Cities, the Mayors Institute for City Design and the Lincoln Institute Legacy Cities Community of Practice. He maintains memberships in the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Black Landscape architects Network and the National Organization of Minority Architects.  With a deep commitment to public interest design and social justice, Charles maintains a firm belief that underserved communities deserve good design, and therefore should be the patrons of a collaborative process-not just the consumers of the end product.  
 

Joshua Budiongan is a Senior Architect + Project Director at the Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC), where he works on neighborhood resiliency, community planning and design projects in communities across Detroit. From 2015 through 2017 he served Jefferson East, Inc. (JEI) as an Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellow. There, he helped initiate JEI’s neighborhood based development activity and planning and design efforts across lower east side neighborhoods of Detroit. He is an adjunct architectural studio professor at the Detroit Mercy School of Architecture & Community Development (SACD), where he earned his M.Arch. Josh works on the board of directors for the Association for Community Design, as board secretary for Bleeding Heart Design, and a core organizer with the Design As Protest Collective and Dark Matter University. Outside of community design, architecture and activism, Josh is a musician, record collector and enjoys cycling and being in touch with nature.

Julia Kowalski is a Senior Designer + Project Director at the Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC). In her time at the design center, Julia has worked on a range of projects from the development of Neighborhood HomeBase, to the facilitation of community engagement processes, to landscape design projects. She holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture. From 2016 to 2017, she had the pleasure of being a Challenge Detroit fellow while working at DCDC. Julia is continually inspired by Samuel Mockbee's decree, "proceed + be bold!" and seeks to integrate a bold, playful, curious attitude in her work. 
 

Toni Henry, is a Senior Designer + Project Director at the Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC) where she works with project partners at multiple scales. Projects range from tiny play structures to educational landscapes to neighborhood plans focused on sustainable practices of green stormwater infrastructure and housing. Toni joined the DCDC in 2016 as a graduate of the Master of Community Development Program at the University of Detroit Mercy where she completed her thesis on participatory design and placemaking along the Joe Louis Greenway. Prior to moving to Detroit she graduated from Iowa State University with a Bachelor's degree in Architecture and a dual degree of Environmental Studies completed at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, CA. 
 

Brigette Murphy-Barbee is the Business Manager for the Detroit Collaborative Design Center and the School of Architecture & Community Development (SACD) at the University of Detroit Mercy. Brigette received a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies and also a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies; both from the University of Detroit Mercy. Her studies focused on history and museum education. Those interests, along with her love of the arts, are fully integrated in the School of Architecture. Brigette has worked at the School of Architecture since 2014 and at the university since 1984.
 

Dan Pitera, FAIA is a political and social activist masquerading as an architect. He is the Dean of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture & Community Development (SACD) and a Senior Principal of the Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC), which received the National AIA’s 2017 Whitney M. Young Jr. Award and was included in the 2017 Curry Stone Design Award’s Social Design Circle. Dan co-led the Civic Engagement process for the Detroit Works Project Long Term Planning in 2010. On January 9, 2013, Long Term Planning team released its decision-making framework titled: Detroit Future City. DCDC’s engagement process was included in the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt Design Museum’s exhibition: By The People and the DCDC’s Roaming Table has been added to the Smithsonian Institute’s permanent collection.

Mr. Pitera was a 2004-2005 Loeb Fellow at Harvard University and was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in 2010, an honor bestow to only 3% of all American architects. Under his direction from 2000 to 2019, the Design Center won the 2011 and 2002 Dedalo Minosse International Prize and was included in the US Pavilion of the 2008 and 2012 Venice Biennale in Architecture. The Center was awarded the 2011 SEED Award and the 2009 Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Design Excellence for the St. Joseph Rebuild Center in New Orleans. The Design Center was the recipient of the NCARB Prize in 2002 and 2009 and was included in the international exhibit/conference ArchiLab in 2001 and 2004 in Orleans, France.

Mr. Pitera is regularly a resource member for Mayor’s Institute for City Design (MICD). He has co-authored the book, Syncopating the Urban Landscape: More People, More Programs, More Geographies and co-edited the book, Activist Architecture: The Philosophy and Practice of the Community Design Center. He likes “fallout shelter” yellow…

Stephanie is the inaugural Public Interest Design Fellow at DCDC. She joins DCDC with training in landscape and environmental design and valuable leadership experience. Stephanie is a Detroit native and alumna of Michigan State University, where she graduated with a Bachelors of Landscape Architecture (‘18) and a Masters of Environmental Design (19’) as the first Black Womxn to obtain this degree. Stephanie was the 2018-2019 student president of MSU’s Student Chapter of the ASLA. Upon graduating, Stephanie was awarded the 2019 MSU College of Agriculture and Natural Resources Outstanding Student Leadership Award and delivered the graduation speech at the Class of 2019 College Commencement Ceremony. In addition, Stephanie was awarded the 2021 Emerging Professional of the Year award from the Michigan ASLA Chapter for her significant contributions to the landscape architecture profession. Currently, Stephanie sits as the Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the Michigan ASLA Chapter and Board Member of the newly established Michigan Chapter ASLA Foundation.