Design News Roundtable: The Neighborhoods

Guest panelists will scour the headlines and opine on recent design, development, and planning news impacting Chicago’s neighborhoods. Housing, preservation and reuse, transportation, sustainability, open space and recreation, placemaking, and arts and culture are all fair game. Brush up on the past few months of built environment news and gain a deeper appreciation for the people, places and difference-makers in diverse communities across Chicago.

This roundtable is hosted by Dario Durham, co-founder of the popular podcast 77 Flavors of Chicago. Our esteemed panelists are Elevated Chicago executive director Juan Sebastian Arias, Preservation Futures co-founder Elizabeth Blasius, Teamwork Englewood executive director Cecile De Mello, and JGMA president & founder Juan Moreno.

Keynote speaker

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Speakers:

Dario Durham is a Chicago-based videographer and content creator. He is co-host of the highly popular podcast 77 Flavors of Chicago, which explores the city’s 77 community areas and tells the stories of each. He has appeared on the award-winning Netflix series “High On the Hog.” Dario is also an avid photographer and world traveler.
Juan Sebastian Arias is the Executive Director of Elevated Chicago, a collaborative of residents, community organizations, artists, developers, community development financial institutions, activists, and city officials that promotes more equitable development of public spaces, buildings and vacant land around Chicago’s public transit infrastructure. 
Juan Sebastian is a strategic and collaborative leader with 15 years of experience working to advance racial equity and social justice in cities. Previously, Juan Sebastian served as First Deputy of Policy under Mayors Brandon Johnson and Lori E. Lightfoot, where he played a leadership role in stewarding strategic policy initiatives, including the landmark 2022 Connected Communities (Equitable Transit-Oriented Development) Ordinance, the We Will Chicago citywide plan, establishing Chicago’s first ever Food Equity Council, and advancing the Bring Chicago Home proposal to generate dedicated revenue for addressing homelessness, among other initiatives. He has previously worked with the Metropolitan Planning Council, Enterprise Community Partners, and Living Cities, among other positions.
Elizabeth Blasius is an architectural historian and writer, and partner in Preservation Futures, a Chicago-based firm exploring the future of historic preservation through research, action and design. Elizabeth works on preservation projects at the forefront of the preservation movement, including buildings designed in the 1980s, 1990s, and beyond. She advocates to bring the recognition and resources of preservation into communities that have been historically overlooked. Prior to founding Preservation Futures in 2021, Elizabeth worked in natural disaster recovery and mitigation, providing guidance on the care of historic places in the aftermath of hurricanes, floods, and other acts of climate violence. Blasius’s writing has been published in The Architect’s Newspaper, Bloomberg CityLab, Curbed and The Chicago Tribune. Elizabeth writes a monthly column for Mas Context, a non-profit architecture and design platform. 
Cecile De Mello is the executive director of Teamwork Englewood, an organization whose mission is to improve the quality of life of the residents and stakeholders of Englewood through community-building efforts. She has a Master’s Degree in Not for Profit Management and another Master’s in Urban Planning and Policy. Cecile was a founding member of Mayor Lori Lightfoot's Community Safety Coordination Center Launch Committee, where she organized City and community resources to improve streetscapes and vacant lots as a violence prevention strategy.
Born in Bogota, Colombia, Juan Gabriel Moreno, AIA, is an award-winning architect and the President/Founder of JGMA (Juan Gabriel Moreno Architects). With over 30 years of experience, he has crafted an extensive portfolio of provocative works, including a variety of public and private projects both in the United States and internationally. In 2010, he launched JGMA to transform Chicago’s diverse communities through architecture. Since then, JGMA has become one of the most highly acclaimed design firms in the city.
Mr. Moreno is also deeply committed to civic engagement and the city of Chicago. He has served as a commissioner on the Commission on Chicago Landmarks and has contributed to the development of Design Excellence Standards in Chicago. Additionally, he was an inaugural member of the Chicago Committee on Design, highlighting his dedication to the city's architectural landscape.