Resources
NDC-designed publications, action guides, and recommended reading to help YOU make the neighborhood yours.
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NDC Publications
Made You Look — Art in the Right of Way Toolkit
ROW Art projects help calm traffic, beautify our neighborhoods, and increase public space for pedestrians. These interventions are affordable, easy to get permits for, and quick to install. Any community can create one! Our toolkit explains the process for Baltimore City. The Made You Look initiative started as a collaboration between MICA Center for Social Design and the Maryland Highway Safety Office, and is now stewarded by the Neighborhood Design Center.
The Design For Distancing Ideas Guidebook
At the onset of COVID-19, the Neighborhood Design Center turned to designers to seek out proposals for helping businesses reopen safely, asking: How might we quickly activate public spaces to support safe, physically distant gathering and the reopening of local businesses? The Ideas Guidebook (2020) features specs from ten designs that transform public space into safe solutions. The guide includes building resources, health guidelines, and more. See the Design For Distancing website here and NDC case study here.
Signal Station North Lighting Guidebook
After two years of community listening, analysis, and design, we compiled our findings and recommendations for bringing creative, collaborative light to Station North — and beyond! This Guidebook (2021) contains practical tools, a critical history, and inspiration for neighborhood light projects. Learn more here.
The Blueprint
The Blueprint (2018) is a roadmap of the NDC process for meaningful community engagement. It includes a collection of practices and principles to illustrate our approach to collaborative community design.
Front and Center: A 5-Year Equity Plan for Central Baltimore
As design consultant, NDC helped develop The Front and Center Plan (2017), which will improve access to economic and social opportunity in six Central Baltimore neighborhoods.
Reclaiming Public Spaces: The case for the built environment as a restorative tool in neighborhoods with high levels of community violence
Published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Community Psychology, this research article (2021) investigates the profound impact that green spaces, playgrounds, and other community-level interventions have on our health.
Annual Report
An inspiring look at what we accomplished in fiscal year 2019.