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MacArthur Fellowship's Urban Designer Damon Rich

Damon Rich
Doug Doyle for WBGO

Hector partner Damon Rich is one of the 24 people to be awarded a 2017 MacArthur Fellowship, a "no-strings-attached award to extraordinarily talented and creative individuals as an investment in their potential."

Hector is a Newark-based urban design, planning, and civic arts studio.  Damon Rich sat down recently with WBGO's Doug Doyle to talk about the award, his outlook on urban design, his experiences working with three different Newark Mayors and his future opportunities. 

For 20 years, Rich has worked to connect practices of design, architecture, and urban planning with democratic self-governance. Often created in collaboration with young people, community organizations, and other designers and artists, Rich’s projects range from parks and other public spaces to neighborhood plans and civic-education programs, all infused with the spirited complexity of the places and living things that surround them.

Learning from traditions of visionary architecture, advocacy planning, popular education, and community organizing, Rich turns attention to the belief systems that shape decisions about the built environment.

Click above to hear the WBGO interview with Damon Rich.

Doug Doyle has been News Director at WBGO since 1998 and has taken his department to new heights in coverage and recognition. Doug and his staff have received more than 250 awards from organizations like PRNDI (now PMJA), AP, New York Association of Black Journalists, Garden State Association of Black Journalists and the New Jersey Society of Professional Journalists.