The School of Design’s Sue and Leon Genet Gallery at the Nancy Cantor Warehouse is proud to present the 2025 “Meaningful Partnership” exhibition.
“Meaningful Partnership” showcases work from this year’s collaboration between the environmental and interior design program, SUNY ESF’s construction management program, the Northside Learning Center, and Northside Futures in Syracuse, New York.
Now in its eighth year, this design-build course has evolved through a series of partnerships with different community organizations—each bringing unique voices, needs and perspectives to the classroom.
This year, the environmental and interior design program collaborated with the Northside Learning Center and Northside Futures, marking a new and meaningful chapter in the course’s history. What sets this year apart is the direct participation of Northside Futures’ community members, who joined design and construction students in class sessions. By immersing themselves in the design process, they offered valuable community insight and helped shape the outcomes and gained skills to lead projects within their community.
This new partnership opens additional doors in the world of community rebuilding, allowing for community members to understand design, construction management and decision-making processes and preparing them to lead projects in the Northside community.
The project includes understanding the Northside community’s characteristics and demographics, surveying the site, producing as-built drawings, delivering design presentations at various stages, and aiding SUNY ESF partners in developing construction schedules, estimates, value engineering and sustainable measures.
Northside Futures and their workforce training cohorts joined the students in both design and construction, achieving a true design-build partnership via an integrated project management approach.
The exhibition highlights the results of this integrated partnership—student work informed by authentic community engagement and a shared investment in the future of Syracuse’s Northside.
The exhibition will be on view April 18 through May 2. A public reception will be held on Tuesday, April 22, at noon.