Mission and Vision

Mission
The mission of the Newark Design Collaborative (NDC) is to work collaboratively in partnership with the City of Newark. To fulfill this mission, we are bringing together the expertise and experience of NJIT faculty, city agencies and other community stakeholders in the planning and design of a more equitable, sustainable and prosperous city. The collaborative aims to contribute our collective expertise to Newark’s development, while engaging community perspectives in that development and educating future designers and planners. We will provide our students and prospective students with a rich learning experience through direct engagement with the Newark community in the design and planning process, thereby providing them with the experience needed to address the design challenges facing dense urban areas in the 21st century. 

What We Do
The Collaborative focuses the College’s engagement with the city of Newark through design studios, seminar classes, independent projects, reports, and community engagement. The NDC also serves as a clearinghouse and resource for faculty, students, city agencies and developers with project documentation and the Digital Archive of Newark Architecture (DANA) in the Littman Library at Hillier College. 

Leadership
This initiative is being led by Professors Anthony Schuman, Darius Sollohub and Georgeen Theodore, and draws on the expertise and commitment of over a dozen colleagues across Hillier College and the university. 

Future Vision
The future vision of this initiative is the establishment of Newark Design Collaborative in downtown Newark to create an off-campus center for community collaborations and to provide a neighborhood meeting place and studio for work, planning, presentations, discussion and debate over development theory and practice in our host city.