Post-Refinery Futures
Working Towards Justice
Dive Deeper
Working Towards Justice
Design Advocacy and Partnerships
Like most designers, we typically work as consultants, waiting for others to frame a project and its goals. We started out that way on this project, but the people that brought us in were advocates at the Clean Air Council and the Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation at Drexel University — not the developer. This gave us the freedom to be critical and open-ended; we have continued that mode of working through the Green New Deal Superstudio. Our goal here is impact, both at the local level – the city where most of us live, work and breathe – and at the national level, where we must be working through the post-carbon transition at scale. We can’t do it alone. To maximize the impact of this research and work, we are building our existing partnerships and seeking new ones.
National Resource
The national map on the National Context page is the start of a national refinery atlas that advocates, policymakers, designers, and citizens can use to identify both current hazards and future opportunities for change.
Federal Infrastructure Funding
We are at a moment of renewed federal investment in infrastructure, investment that could unlock the potential and redress the injustices of refinery sites. Working with policy experts at the Lindy Institute, we hope to position former refineries as an asset class for federal funding.
Local Advocacy
Working with the Clean Air Council and grassroots groups, we are supporting a more inclusive, community-led vision for the Philadelphia site through research and visualization.
Framework Plan
Building on our prior work, we aim to develop a plan for the Philadelphia refinery site that prioritizes equitable job creation and environmental justice within a flexible framework acknowledging the time and uncertainty of both remediation and the local economy.