Explore twelve visions for Woodlawn’s future, developed by Harvard Graduate School of Design students, and how the Obama Presidential Center can advance equitable development and create lasting opportunities for existing residents.
ON VIEW NOW
Hope & Change: The Obama Presidential Center and Woodlawn
Woodlawn Mosaic, Development Site Axonometric View, Saivi Shah, Anishta Khan and Simon Colloredo-Mansfeld, Harvard Graduate School of Design.
The Exhibition
Hope & Change: The Obama Presidential Center and Woodlawn presents twelve student projects from the Harvard Graduate School of Design that imagine the future of Woodlawn, the South Side neighborhood that is now home to the Obama Presidential Center.
Developed over two studio years, the work asks how new investment can create lasting opportunity for existing residents in a community shaped by decades of disinvestment and by its own resilience.
The projects take on hard questions. Who benefits from development? How can housing, public space, and economic activity build a more inclusive neighborhood? And how can ambitious plans move forward without displacing current residents?
Drawing on urban design, planning, real estate and public policy, students paired spatial ideas with the realities of implementation: financing, phasing, and governance alongside affordability, environmental resilience and social impact. Each proposal also weighs the roles that residents, civic institutions, public agencies and private partners play in shaping what comes next.
Urban design professor Maurice D. Cox led the studio both years, joined by real estate professor Justin Chapman in 2025 and Avis Devine in 2026. Each of the twelve visions takes its own direction, and all share a commitment to public purpose.
The show is installed on seven rolling display boards in the CAC Cafe Space, outside the Lecture Hall.
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