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In September 2024, the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF)—a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit serving landscape architects—announced its third official cohort for LAF Ignite. Ignite is a multi-year scholarship/internship/mentorship program for landscape architecture students in the United States who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color. Illinois Tech student Brendan Hall (M.Arch./M.LA+U Dual Degree 4th Year) was one of five students nationwide selected to join the group.

Students of the Ignite program receive an annual $10,000 scholarship, paid summer internship, and various forms of mentorship throughout the time that they are in their degree program.

“The program affords me the opportunity to interact with other landscape architects who look like me, [as well as] other up-and-coming landscape architects in programs across the nation,” Hall said. “It’s encouraging to be able to see that we’re all trying to head in the same direction.”

After graduating with a degree in political science from Governors State University in Chicago’s South suburbs in 2018, Hall started working at the University of Chicago as a crime policy analyst. While there, he became involved with the Strategic Decision Support Centers, a project developed by University of Chicago Urban Labs and the Chicago Police Department aimed at trying to reduce crime in some of the most violent districts of Chicago. While working out of one of the Centers, Hall made a discovery that eventually changed the trajectory of his career path—one that would bridge his passion for political science and his love of landscape architecture.

Hall found himself working in a police precinct that incorporated architect Jeanne Gang’s Polis Station design. The Polis Station project aimed to transform police stations into spaces for public safety and community benefit by reframing them as sites of social connection and services that offer a holistic, community-centered approach to public safety.

“I thought the utilization of the built environment to create opportunities for people who normally wouldn’t have positive interactions [in that setting] was incredibly intriguing,” says Hall.

Hall also began reading research articles on the effects of transforming blighted lots into environmentally friendly and sustainable spaces and the benefits that has had on improving mental health, reducing crime, and feelings of fear. This coupled with the inspiration he took from Polis Station became the basis of Hall’s decision to enroll in IIT’s M.Arch./M.LA+U Dual Degree program.

Going forward, Hall hopes to one day acquire vacant properties across Chicago, implement design intervention projects, and then measure the impact they have on surrounding communities. “Essentially, I’m trying to combine my background in political science and public policy with my architecture and landscape architecture experience,” he says.

Being part of Ignite has also helped Hall make new connections and experience new learning opportunities. Over the summer, He took part in an internship where he got to travel to Kansas City for the United States Conference of Mayors and to Detroit for the Mayors’ Institute on City Design. Last year he got to travel to Paris for an internship with the architecture firm Chartier Dalix, where he saw up close how big international cities handle urban design issues.

“The scholarship affords me an opportunity to continue to inform the design philosophy I plan to carry into my career,” says Hall. “I want to eventually create my own [multidisciplinary] studio, with an aspect of research, to inform policy that can create frameworks for cities, neighborhoods, and villages to create more inclusive design.”