A recent design competition will soon yield new temporary, outdoor social spaces across 17 Baltimore neighborhoods.
The "Design for Distancing: Reopening Baltimore Together" initiative strives to reimagine how public spaces might be reconfigured in the age of Covid-19 so that shoppers can more safely patronize small businesses. A national call was recently put out for sketches and renderings of possible solutions, and this week 10 winning concepts were selected by a panel of experts from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, city officials and leaders from Baltimore's small business and design communities. Awardees will be given $5,000 each to advance their designs to be included in a digital guidebook, which will be available soon to communities across the world working on ways to support small businesses during the ongoing pandemic, said Jennifer Goold, executive director of the nonprofit Neighborhood Design Center, which is managing the initiative.
