Three New Design for Freedom Pilot Projects Announced
Sharon Prince opens the Design for Freedom Summit at Grace Farms. Photo by Melani Lust
Grace Farms held its fourth annual Design for Freedom Summit on March 27, 2025, bringing together leaders across sectors to harness the power of the built environment and uphold and support human rights to remove forced and child labor from the building materials supply chain. The day featured engaging presentations, tours in and around Grace Farms’ iconic SANAA-designed River building, and inspiring breakout sessions highlighting how all sectors can get involved and accelerate the movement. Five hundred and fifty leaders were in attendance, including 75 students representing 25 universities.
Sharon Prince, CEO and Founder of Grace Farms said, “Every building tells a story of humanity — either of dignity or exploitation. The untold story of buildings worldwide is that the materials that we build with – from the extraction of raw materials to the finished product – are largely unchecked and at risk of being produced with forced or child labor. The challenge of eradicating forced labor from global supply chains requires all of us to interlock our efforts across sectors, industries, and borders. Through the Design for Freedom Summit, we have a real and impactful opportunity to create change by harnessing our collective power to demand transparency and ethical practices throughout the supply chain.”
Sharon Prince moderates panel on Generational Forest Stewardship in Haida Gwaii. Photo by Melani Lust
At the event, Grace Farms announced three new Design for Freedom Pilot Projects, which model more transparent and ethical supply chains and represent a range of typologies. They engage project teams, yield new research and partnerships, and uncover challenges and opportunities of how to build more humanely. The process also challenges each team to verify their supply chain for fair labor for select materials and galvanize change to create new outcomes for the industry. They are:
- Battery Park Field House in New York City – Located within 25 acres of historic public parkland at the southern tip of Manhattan, the field house makes a critical final step in realizing the vision of beauty and innovation that has transformed The Battery. Designed by WXY architecture + urban design, the project is in partnership with the Battery Conservancy and its Founder and President Warrie Price.
“Changing perceptions of public washrooms and public parks maintenance facilities is a perfect match for the Design for Freedom Toolkit and for inspiring the care of our public parks and gardens,” said Claire Weisz, Founding Partner of WXY.
- Hightower® Manufacturing Headquarters in High Point, North Carolina – Commercial furniture company Hightower’s adaptive reuse project of an existing 175,000-square-foot facility is designed by Burns & McDonnell to set a new standard for sustainable, innovative, and socially responsible manufacturing. Every aspect of the facility is crafted to reflect Hightower’s commitment to ethical manufacturing, circular design, and workplace innovation. The project is slated for completion in 2026.
- The Grace Farms Rest House Project, designed by Slade Architecture, aims to provide tea and coffee farmers worldwide with ethically designed, sustainably built rest houses that offer safety, respite, and community spaces. By leveraging open-source design principles, this initiative seeks to create globally adaptable solutions that uphold and demonstrate Design for Freedom principles.
These Pilot Projects join 11 completed and ongoing projects across three continents led by Grace Farms.
The day of the Summit began with live jazz from Marcus G. Miller & The Hummingbirds and a welcome address from Grace Farms CEO and Founder, Sharon Prince. This was followed by a conversation between human rights activist and Founding Director of Walk Free Grace Forrest and Amar Lal, a lawyer with lived experience in debt bondage. Plenary panels explored critical issues related to forced and fair labor in the built environment such as Innovation in Supply Chain Accountability, Generational Forest Stewardship in Haida Gwaii, and Accelerating Design for Freedom Internationally.
The panel on Generational Forest Stewardship was moderated by Sharon Prince, CEO and Founder of Grace Farms and featured Leticia Hill, CEO, HaiCo; Jeff Mosher, Chief Forester, Taan Forest; Orrin Quinn, Manager, Western Canada, FSC, and Toshihiro Oki, Architecture Advisor, Grace Farms told the story of Grace Farms’ red cedar fascia project and how the new fascia is sustainably and ethically sourced from Haida Gwaii, an archipelago off the coast of British Columbia. It is FSC certified and also meets The Haida Nation’s high cultural preservation standards, demonstrating human dignity in the built environment.
Leticia Hill, CEO, HaiCo, said “There is a Haida guiding principle that represents respect for each other and living things. It’s rooted in all of our culture. We take only what we need. We give thanks, and we acknowledge everyone who behaves accordingly.”
Adam Thatcher, co-founder of Grace Farms Tea & Coffee, a Certified B Corp™ that gives 100% of profits to support Design for Freedom, shared the stories behind Grace Farms’ ethically and sustainably sourced teas and coffees that are now available at Whole Foods Market and found in the offices of corporate partners such as JP Morgan and Google.
Participants also had the opportunity to engage in breakout sessions that ranged from a focus on ethical decarbonization with mass timber and the role of investors to a case study on the University of Virginia’s Karsh Institute of Democracy Pilot Project and an opportunity to hear from the designers behind the With Every Fiberexhibit currently on view, which proposes strategies and practices to address the issue of forced labor in the building materials supply chain.
The day closed out with a presentation from Hugh Evans, Co-Founder & CEO of Global Citizen, an organization dedicated to eliminating extreme poverty worldwide. The audience was inspired by Evans’ words as he highlighted Global Citizen’s efforts to make adifference in the world to protect people and the planet, and how that work aligns with Design for Freedom.
“Like Design for Freedom, Global Citizen is a movement, focused on action. Poverty and forced labor are not isolated – they are man-made, and are entrenched in systemic inequalities that perpetuate human suffering and economic oppression,” said Hugh Evans. “Every action you take has the power to uplift communities and protect people – and when leaders like you commit, you’re not just changing an industry, you are changing lives.”
A full agenda and a list of speakers can be found here.
Design for Freedom is scaling internationally and driving change through its International Accelerators and global initiatives. In January, Grace Farms launched the Design for Freedom International Guidance & Toolkit, available in print for the first time at the Summit. Accelerators in the UK, India (with strategic partner the Centre for Responsible Business) and Vietnam (with the International Organization for Migration) foster collaboration with businesses, universities, and other stakeholders, advancing Design for Freedom principles in new locations. In early 2025, Grace Farms joined the UN Global Compact, the world’s largest sustainability initiative with 82 in-country networks, amplifying the Design for Freedom movement globally. It has also been accepted as a partner with Alliance 8.7 to join forces with more than 400 leading organizations committed to eradicating forced labor, modern slavery, human trafficking, and child labor.
Support
The 2025 Design for Freedom Summit is supported by collaborators Acelab, Assa Abloy, and MillerKnoll. Additional support is provided by HKS, Sciame, Shaw Contract, Turner Construction, SourceBlue, ARUP, Louis Fusco Landscape Architects, and MASS Design.
