April De Simone
https://thepracticeofdemocracy.org/
April De Simone, Founder of The Practice of Democracy, is a transdisciplinary designer working at the intersection of architecture, planning, and systems thinking. She investigates the implicit relationship between democratic values, the built environment and the conditions shaping our society. Her work connects a deeper understanding of how inequity and legacies of dehumanization are not only spatialized and proliferated but a threat to the full potential of democracy. In partnership with diverse stakeholders, she reframes opportunities within spatial practice, to root democratic values into the environments and systems we build around us. Recently, she was recognized by Enterprise Community Partners as one of their Impactful 40. A Dean Merit Scholar recipient, she received her Master of Science in Design and Urban Ecologies from Parsons School of Design and is currently pursuing her Master’s in Architecture.
- April De Simone is a transdisciplinary design practitioner with over 20 years of experience addressing society’s most pressing and interconnected challenges. Ms. De Simone, has worked on numerous projects demonstrating the equitable, humane, and just capacities of architecture and design mediums, including a supervised visitation site at the Bronx Borough Courthouse and the social enterprise venture Urban Starzz.
- In 2015, she co-founded designing the WE (dtW), where she co-created the nationally recognized Undesign the Redline (UTR) platform Her new platform, Spatial Forensics, launched in the Fall of 2021. Spatial Forensics is a research and design studio investigating the implicit and invisible relationship between architecture and human condition. Spatial Forensics works with diverse stakeholders as an interdisciplinary studio, connecting a deeper understanding of how inequity, supremacy (in its various forms), and dehumanization become spatialized and proliferated. From this context, opportunities for a new pedagogical and methodological approach expands the agency of design to interrogate and deconstruct existing paradigms, while simultaneously advancing an emergence of projects within the built environment centered on equity, justice, and inclusion.
- Ms. De Simone continues to be an invited lecturer, speaker, and facilitator at numerous institutions. She sits on progressive boards, including that of the American Sustainable Business Council and works closely on a local and national level with diverse stakeholders within the design sector, including the Urban Design Forum, on issues of race, equity, and new economies. A Dean Merit Scholar recipient, she received her Master of Science in Design and Urban Ecologies from Parsons School of Design. Currently she is pursuing her Masters in Architecture.
