People returning to city life after time in prison will soon be able to find help at some branch libraries. How can designers help librarians create life-saving connections?

Seed libraries can restart agriculture after disasters. But what of useless plants? Two artists save the spontaneous, weedy species that serve no purpose but their own.

Nandini Bagchee shares her students' work to forge an equal exchange with activists fighting for community space in the South Bronx, in a studio where designers became advocates and advocates became designers.

As Manhattan's Chinatown experiences rapid change, a historic porcelain store on Mott Street reinvents itself as a space for intergenerational dialogue and community activation. UO talks to Mei Lum and Diane Wong, the minds behind the W.O.W. Project, about what they've learned and where they're headed next.

Can public art, oral history, and open dialogue help rebuild burned bridges between estranged community groups? Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani recounts her experience in the Lower East Side's Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA).

Two refugees, a longtime community member, and the International Rescue Committee's New Roots program manager tell us how a Bronx garden melds resettlement efforts, job training, and good ole' fashioned community building, served up with a side of bitter melon.

Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani shares stories of significant personal places from six Prospect Heights residents in the early 2000s and introduces a project to make visible those stories in the very different landscape of the contemporary neighborhood.

Earlier this year, a group of community advisors in Queens attended a community design school to formulate proposals to reconnect Flushing Meadows Corona Park to the surrounding communities. We hear from Design Trust Fellows Sam Holleran and José Serrano-McClain and Community Advisors Esther Sánchez and Jason Chin-Fatt on how it all went down.