Risk-Informed Design for Safer, More Inclusive Public Spaces
Today, building safe environments requires an awareness of helping individuals, communities, and our critical urban ecosystems work and connect in more humane ways. Applying a risk-informed lens to your design practice can help to increase awareness of how different users of the space may experience safety, and increase the accessibility, use, and cohesion of public and private spaces. Diverse identities, societies' values, and lived experiences play a role, amongst many other variables, only increasing the complexity that decision-makers and professionals may need to integrate to build an environment perceived to be safe for all those intersectional identities that wish to occupy them.
Join Kerrie as she shares the findings from her research and professional experiences coordinating safety initiatives across disciplines to build safer spaces. She will show how risk-informed design tools and spatial syntax considerations can help to create empowering public spaces that support gender equity by increasing safety for women in the public spaces that are manifested through our professional practices.
Corporate Consultant | City of Calgary
Kerrie Green is a multidisciplinary resilience and risk professional with more than 15 years of experience spanning architectural practice, emergency management, sustainable design, research and development, advocacy, and public engagement. Her work focuses on advancing equitable resilience across the urban built environment through integrated, trauma-informed approaches to risk management and design. Drawing on expertise in risk assessment methodologies and resilient design strategies, Kerrie is passionate about creating safer, more inclusive, and adaptable public spaces and communities. She combines analytical insight with practical problem-solving to address complex challenges in innovative and accessible ways, while championing collaboration, continuous learning, and community-centered outcomes. A dynamic speaker and advocate, Kerrie is committed to helping organizations and communities strengthen resilience through thoughtful design, informed decision-making, and human-centered approaches that recognize the value of empathy, creativity, and authentic connection.
