Get your tickets now for our annual Benefit for Public Space! We’re returning to the New York Public Library Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library rooftop to honor innovative leaders who are instrumental in the positive transformation of the city’s shared landscape. Join us for cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and sunset cityscape views, all while supporting our work to unlock the potential of NYC’s public spaces. This year we’re celebrating affordable housing for NYC!
Access to well-maintained and sustainable housing is integral to the future of the five boroughs. Connecting housing to our public spaces builds more connected and thriving neighborhoods. Our 2026 Honorees demonstrate housing initiatives that center design excellence and community needs.
🔗🌇 Learn more about their work, tickets, and sponsorship packages, at the link in our bio
The Neurodiverse City project, led by Design Trust for Public Space, @veronacarpenter Architects, @wip_collaborative , and a network of disability advocates, is reimagining public spaces to better support neurodivergent New Yorkers.
Join us for a @nycxdesign week exhibition at @positiveexposure , featuring prototypes and a gallery of neuroinclusive sensory design, and the release of a new publication on the project’s learnings and recommendations for a more accessible city.
Learn more and RSVP at the link in our bio!
CARExDESIGN 2026 features tours, exhibitions, community build events, art exhibitions and other programming by, with, for and about people with disabilities, hosted at two non-profit spaces that are part of NYC’s network of radical care for the disabled community. The Adaptive Design Association in the Garment District and Positive Exposure in the Financial District, are active spaces of change for the ‘better living of all.”
Explore the full roster of events, including the Neurodiverse City, on our RSVP page and at @adaptivedesigninc@studiophoria
Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery has reopened a historic greenhouse as a new visitor center and exhibition hall, offering a community hub, research archive, and local art venue. The Green-Wood Green-House was restored by ARO architecture, creating what Green-Wood Cemetery president Meera Joshi calls a “front door” to the resting place of more than 583,000 people.
Our Design Trust Council took a special tour and preview of the space ahead of the public unveiling with the team that brought it to life earlier this month. DT Council is a community network of civic-minded professionals who support the Design Trust’s mission to make a lasting impact—through design—on public space in NYC. Members gain access to special events, tours, and talks like this!
Learn more about joining at the link in our bio and check out our annual benefit sponsorship packages that include complementary membership.
ICYMI watch a recording of last night’s Reimagining the Enslaved African Burial Ground at Van Cortlandt Park panel with Van Cortlandt Park Alliance and Lehman College, featuring the three teams selected from the project’s Design Ideas Competition to envision memorial and community healing in the Bronx, 🌸 link in our bio!
Last fall, we opened our 12th open call for public space project ideas on the theme of Water: Designing an Equitable Water Future for NYC, aiming to transform the five boroughs’ relationship to water through funding and a guided project development incubator.
We are honored to announce the five winning project proposals. Scroll through above to meet our Water Cohort and head to the link in our bio to learn more.
Macaulay Honors College is proud to expand its partnership with Design Trust for Public Space through the launch of a special Spring Break Photo Urbanism program. 📸 The program, Home Without Boundaries, invited students to consider how New Yorkers create a sense of home beyond the walls of their apartments—within parks, streets, plazas, and shared gathering spaces. They then developed original, portfolio-ready photography projects.
This collaboration builds on the success of the New York: City Designed initiative, which created new pathways to careers in urban planning, design, and public service through experiential learning, hands-on workshops, and internship opportunities. The Photo Urbanism Fellowship is supported in part by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts.
🔗 Meet the program participants: https://ow.ly/vaQt50YJ6Ml (Link in bio)
🏙️ Interested in exploring the intersection of people, place, and design? Enroll in Designing New York City, a Fall 2026 course offered in partnership with the Design Trust for Public Space:
https://ow.ly/eUHK50YJ6Mj
The Annual Dip-Off 🥣 is a time-honored tradition at the Design Trust for Public Space. Every year at our Tribeca headquarters, DT staff face off to create the perfect dip, as judged by our expert tasting panel of project partners and community supporters. From roasted tomato ricotta to spicy onion, our contestants brought the heat and did not hold back.
But there can only be one dip champion. The winner of the 2026 DT Dip-Off is…🥁🥁🥁
Senior Operations and Program Manager Pati for her cheesy corn dip!
Congrats Chef on bragging rights and a trophy to display at your desk for the year👩🍳🏆
Last night was extra special as we also announced and welcomed the five winning projects from our Water: Designing an Equitable Water Future for NYC Request for Proposals. Stay tuned for the public announcement dropping soon 🌊 Subscribe to our newsletter at the link in our bio to get the announcement first!
In the latest issue of @designing_lighting , Opening the Edge Lighting Design Fellow @katesweaterrrrrrr illuminates how this Design Trust project set out to replace a fenced-off plot with a vibrant community outdoor space, designed by and for Lower East Side public housing residents. Kate describes her role in the work as “less about lighting space and more about how a community defines safety, identity, and ownership.”
@openingtheedge won a Special Citation for Community Involvement in the Lighting Design Process from the 2026 National Lighting Bureau Tesla Awards!
💡🔗Read the article at the link in our bio.
Get your tickets now for our annual Benefit for Public Space! We’re returning to the New York Public Library Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library rooftop to honor innovative leaders who are instrumental in the positive transformation of the city’s shared landscape. Join us for cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and sunset cityscape views, all while supporting our work to unlock the potential of NYC’s public spaces. This year we’re celebrating affordable housing for NYC!
Access to well-maintained and sustainable housing is integral to the future of the five boroughs. Connecting housing to our public spaces builds more connected and thriving neighborhoods. Our 2026 Honorees demonstrate housing initiatives that center design excellence and community needs. 🔗🌇 Learn more about their work, tickets, and sponsorship packages, at the link in our bio
The Reimagining the Enslaved African Burial Ground at Van Cortlandt Park project, led by Van Cortlandt Park Alliance, Design Trust for Public Space, and Immanuel Oni of Liminal sp, has selected three design teams through its Design Ideas Competition, aiming to generate new visions for a memorial honoring the site.
Meet the Design Ideas Lab cohort and register for an upcoming panel on the project, hosted by CHASE, Lehman College's Campus Honors & Scholar Engagement and moderated by Artist, Educator & Preservationist Jeremiah Olayinka Ojo at the link in our bio!
How do New York City’s public spaces feel like “home” to you?
We’ve brought our Photo Urbanism program to @macaulayhonors at @cunyedu , asking young photographers to explore the theme of “Home Without Boundaries” in a paid, guided photography fellowship led by the Design Trust for Public Space Photo Urbanism Teaching Fellow Barnabas Crosby @whiskeyboys_ent
🔗📸Meet the cohort at the link in our bio and stay tuned for a final exhibition of their work to be announced this summer
Last fall, we opened our 12th call for public space project ideas on the theme of Water:Designing an Equitable Water Future for NYC. Our inbox overflowed with pitches, spanning the five boroughs and all facets of public life, from connecting New Yorkers to their waterways, to neighborhood drinking water, flood preparedness, swimming safety, and beyond.
We are proud to share our 26 semi-finalists and their bold visions to transform our relationship with water in the public realm.
🔗💧Explore their proposals at the link in our bio.
Up to five final winning projects will be selected from this list by our Advisory Committee of experts working across water sectors later this spring, and receive a $10,000 stipend and the opportunity to participate in our nine-month guided project incubator.
Water Graphic Design by @mtwtf_studio
