Colloqate Design

Friends, we need your help. We’re a little late in sharing this, but want to highlight some of our work from 2025. This video recap is a taste of what our team did last year, and we don’t want to slow it down. 2025 brought a convergence of challenges that hit our practice hard: several of our projects faced major delays; RFPs for mission aligned projects slowed down as institutions attempted to stay under the radar from anti DEI purges; tariffs and economic uncertainty took a toll on new projects; philanthropic funding has been spread thin. We have seen amazing support from our community already but were unable to fill our funding gap as a result of these challenges. As a result, we had to say goodbye to four of our coworkers this month. Although we are a smaller team and feeling the grief of parting with beloved team members, we remain committed to the work and are pressing ahead. Please show our team and mission some love in this moment and contribute if you can. You can visit colloqate.org/contribute to donate. And if you have a project that aligns with our mission, please contact us at collaborate@colloqate.org. No matter the size, if we can join you to make an impact, we want to hear about it. Partners + Collaborators for our Storia: Delta, Storia: Djembe, and Rebecca Howard Park projects: Curious Forms Imagine Waterworks Friends of Lafitte Greenway Media Island International Bvlbancha Public Access Mastodonte

The Center for Black Student Excellence (CBSE) is a Black- community visioned project in Portland, Oregon to address the education achievement gap for Black youth in Portland Public Schools. As a part of our work during the visioning process, we created a printed community newspaper that summarized engagement outcomes, celebrated student voices, and encouraged further engagement. We love using familiar and tangible modes of communication that reach everyday spaces to share project updates, reinforce feedback loops, and spark excitement for future engagement opportunities. We distributed the CBSE newspaper with the help of community members and partners in neighborhood places like schools, barbershops, corner stores, and community events. When was the last time you read a newspaper? Partners/Collaborators: Imagine Black (fka Portland African American Leadership Forum) Iammore_pnw PPS Innovation Center for Black Excellence

Designed with guidance from Indigenous community members, an indoor Gathering Circle and outdoor Conversation Circle honor collective connection—in many Indigenous traditions, circles represent our relationship not just with each other, but with the broader world, reflecting balance, interconnectedness, and our place within larger systems of life. These spaces also respond to a shared desire from Midland’s diverse communities to center collective connection rather than individual isolation. Circles carry deep meaning across cultures: representing balance and interconnectedness, and wholeness and harmony. Inside, the Gathering Circle is framed by a mural from artist Kanani Miyamoto, created collaboratively through ink wash workshops with community members, making the artwork itself a reflection of collective creativity. The space has become a beloved hub for casual hangouts, joyful storytimes, staff gatherings, and conversations. Outside, the Conversation Circle is nestled within the reading garden, designed with features that orient people to the cardinal directions, grounding the space in place, relation, and reflection.

Are you attending NOMA2025 or ASLA2025 this week? Colloqate will be there! Our Design Director Bryan Lee Jr., NOMA President & FAIA, and Designer Bryan Bradshaw, will be at the National Organization for Minority Architects Conference in Kansas City leading a couple sessions over the weekend and Architect Natalia Revelo La Rotta will be at American Society for Landscape Architects (ASLA) in New Orleans co-presenting a session this Saturday.

Colloqate's work spans projects large and small. The renovated MLK Library in Washington DC is a rehabilitation of the historic Mies Van De Rohe building in the heart of downtown. The library's exhibit centers the collective legacy of Dr. King, Marion Barry and the array of individuals that ensured the success of the civil rights movement and lead the way for present-day activists and organizers. Colloqate worked closely with Studio Joseph to create a wide-ranging team of experts in exhibit design, community engagement, art history, and virtual exhibits to design an engaging exhibit space. Graphic materials and artifacts are displayed throughout, with interactive seating areas and an exhibit organization that revolved around subjects and people such as the Poor People’s Campaign and Mayor Marion Barry. As a central part of our community engagement approach, we created prototypes of 8 concepts under consideration for the exhibit: Community Gallery, Personal Stories Card Catalog, Neighborhood Experience Maps, Collective Voices of DC, Marion Barry, Poor People’s Campaign, MLK + Connect, and Music of the City. We were tasked with engaging long-time DC residents and youth, with installations that would move people to creative action in the spirit of the stories being centered in the exhibit. Our prototyping events invited community members to explore our informational pieces, and test out our interactive installations. We gathered feedback from folks about content, format, impact, and how the experience could be most meaningful. This participatory approach was essential for curating the stories and artifacts included in the final exhibit, and helped ensure the result was an informed, responsive reflection of Dr. King and his connections to the movement for civil rights in DC.

At Midland Library in East Portland, the ceiling does more than cap the space—it carries a story. Guided by community input, the theme of water—spiritual, cultural, and central to all life—was chosen to anchor the design. Flowing forms, carpet tile patterns, and acoustic baffles honor the Big River (Columbia), a lifeline to this region and its Indigenous peoples. The gold-to-blue gradient nods to Talking Leaves, a beloved original artwork by Lucinda Parker anchoring the east end of the space, while bridging past and present with movement and light. This design is more than aesthetic—it’s a recognition: We are on Native land. We are part of something bigger. Midland Library photo credit: Josh Partee Architect of Record: Bora Architecture & Interiors Multnomah County Library PLACE

If you're interested in moving the design justice movement forward, and you're attending #AIA25 this week, Colloqate will be well represented! Our Design Director Bryan Lee Jr., NOMA President & FAIA, and Board Member Rosa Sheng, FAIA (JEDI Director & VP of Higher Education Studio at SmithGoup), will each lead a couple of sessions. Come say hi if you're there, and join us in celebrating Bryan's FAIA elevation and Whitney M. Young Award!