About

Dept of Places is a participatory design and community engagement practice based on occupied Tongva land (Los Angeles, CA.)

Dept of Places applies the power of architecture + design to strengthen neighborhoods so that all residents, especially Indigenous, Black, Brown, and all People of Color, live in safe, healthy, joyful and just places.

What we can do:

architectural and design services
urban planning and neighborhood visioning
equity-centered design curriculum
workshop facilitation

All processes are community-engaged and rooted in shared decision-making with the people directly impacted by the project.

Dept. of Places is directed by Theresa Hyuna Hwang (she/her), a community-engaged architect, educator, and facilitator. She has spent over 15 years focused on equitable cultural and community development with multiple groups and campaigns.

Theresa/Hyuna draws upon her experiences as a second generation Corean-american cis-woman, Libra sun with a Virgo rising, arts organizer, open mic host, and more recently, as a solo parent and mother to a young child, to hold spaces of mindful dialogue, deep listening and shared creation, to address collective neighborhood-based trauma and design solutions based on first-hand experiences, centering those who have been most impacted.

Additionally, she is the Program Director of Design Futures Student Leadership Forum, a national anti-racist design education initiative. She is on the Board of Directors of Venice Community Housing and on the land use committee of her local Neighborhood Council. Theresa is a certified trauma informed and non-violent communication parenting educator and a mindfulness practitioner in the Plum Village tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh.

She was the former Director of Community Design and Planning at the Skid Row Housing Trust, a non-profit permanent supportive housing organization where she was the Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellow from 2009-2012. Her work has been featured in Architectural Record, the New York Times, City Lab, Al-Jazeera America and other media outlets. She was recognized as one of Next City’s Urban Vanguards in 2015. Theresa was a founding member of Boston Progress Arts Collective and EMW Bookstore, a treasured experience that continues to guide her work to this day.

Theresa/Hyuna received her Master of Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design (2007) and a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and Art History from the Johns Hopkins University (2001). She is a licensed architect in California and is a LEED accredited professional.

You can follow Theresa/Hyuna’s thoughts and inspirations on instagram @deptofplaces