Building Cities with Character

Like Design Thinking RVA itself, the initiative is not committed to a single methodology.

Participants draw from a range of approaches including Stanford d.school, LUMA Institute, Double Diamond, systems thinking, placemaking, and other emerging frameworks. The goal is not adherence to any one process, but the cultivation of shared inquiry, practical experimentation, and collective learning.

Join the Movement

Building Cities with Character operates from a simple belief: cities are reflections of what their people choose to notice, nurture, repair, and create together.

Rather than beginning with predetermined solutions, each workshop creates space to better understand the places we care about, uncover hidden opportunities, and strengthen the civic imagination required to shape more resilient and meaningful futures.

Whether you are a designer seeking to sharpen your craft, a community member invested in your neighborhood, a business leader exploring local impact, or simply someone curious about how places evolve, Building Cities with Character offers a welcoming space to learn, contribute, and participate in the ongoing story of your city.

Building Cities with Character is an evolving civic design initiative emerging from the Design Thinking RVA community. What began as a monthly gathering of practitioners exploring human-centered design frameworks has expanded into a living laboratory for understanding and shaping the places we inhabit.

Each gathering brings together residents, designers, entrepreneurs, civic leaders, artists, planners, and curious citizens to investigate the complex systems that influence a city's character. Through field observation, dialogue, systems mapping, collaborative sensemaking, and prototyping, participants explore the relationships between people, place, culture, memory, stewardship, and opportunity.