J Max Bond Center

For Urban Futures

Our Mission

J Max Bond Center For Urban Futures

The J. Max Bond Center is a City College of New York Applied Research Center with a focus on spatial and social justice.

The Center is located within the Spitzer School of Architecture in Harlem. Building on the legacy of architect and activist J. Max Bond Jr, we aspire to create equitable and just urban futures that foster individual and communal success, in Harlem and beyond. Working towards a just future means confronting existing inequity in the built environment that has resulted from numerous intersecting injustices. The complexity of these challenges necessitates that Bond Center staff, faculty, students, and affiliates forge close community partnerships and cross-disciplinary collaborations - from research to implementation - with colleagues in architecture, data science, public policy, economics, social science, health, and environmental science. What results are radical visions of successful urban futures for all.

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“Architecture inevitably involves all the larger issues of society”
— J. Max Bond

The J. Max Bond Center is an organization with roots in the Nation's first community design corporations ARCH Architects Renewal Committee of Harlem founded in 1967.

J. Max Bond Jr. was the former Dean of the City College of New York School of Architecture and Environmental Studies and was an internationally prominent African-American architect, educator, and advocate for racial and social justice. Bond came from a lineage of activists committed to the issues of social justice for those on the margins – Max as an architect and Julian Bond (Max’s cousin) as a lawyer. In 2012, the Board of Trustees of the City College of New York created the J. Max Bond Center, located within the Spitzer School of Architecture.

Max and Julian’s legacy continues to shape JMBC’s pursuits to Design for the Just City.

Initiatives

Our initiatives guide our projects in creating equitable spaces for successful futures.

Affordable Housing Supply

A principle focus on the Center’s work is directed around affordable housing creation. The creation challenges are numerous; land values, land scarcity, financing, zoning etc. The affordable housing supply initiative carefully examines the intersection of these factors in search of new pathways of sustainable affordable housing urban development. 

A collage of four storefronts: Little Bear Coffee, Caféine, Fairway Market, and Rendezvous. The word 'CLOSED' is overlaid in bold white letters on the Caféine storefront.

Equity & Spatial Economics

Social justice is both spatial and economic. The equity and spatial economic initiative situates and mines spatial development practices and policy along with economic practices to spur meaningful innovation to better distribute economic opportunity within and throughout the built environment.

Data Responsive Urbanism & Development

The legacies of spatial policies as broad as Red Lining, and as recent as new and upheld zoning initiatives, have revealed a varied set of performative results in the form of data that can be measured against their intended prerogatives. The data responsive initiative uses this data as an intelligent feedback mechanism in the evaluation of urban and development dynamics such as settlement patterns, displacement, gentrification and resilience. Our goal is formulating new directional insights that seek to achieve greater spatial equity.

White presentation slide with title "Equitable Development Index"

Shared Spatial Governance

The creation of culture and its preservation involves people. Sustaining culture and the corresponding memory of place is an act of collective governance. Our shared spatial governance initiative seeks to support and empower the people, communities and agencies who support cultural creation, cohesion and preservation.

Resiliency and the Stewardship of Public Space

Public space - including parks and right-of-ways - play an important role in creating resilient communities. Together with local partners we’re exploring ways to understand and care for novel urban ecosystems to support a more resilient Harlem.

Research Labs

  • Zihao Zhang

Led by Bond Center staff, college faculty, and affiliated researchers, Bond Center Labs are an opportunity to focus on a specific research topic through coursework, independent research, events, and other explorations. Folks who are interested in learning more about a lab should contact individual lab leaders.

Meet the Team

Current Members

  • Portrait of Shawn Rickenbacker, Director, wearing glasses and a suit, smiling at the camera.

    Shawn Rickenbacker

    Director

  • Lizzie MacWillie

    Assistant Director

  • Alden Copley

    Senior Researcher

  • Jesse McCormick

    Lab Leader

Student Researchers

  • Moe Dieng

  • Phoo Thant Sin Aung

  • Josias Agustín Méndez
    Alejandra Zapata
    Tanha Tubassum
    Estefano Torres
    Mehrose Naeem
    Johnoy Gordon
    Taneya Ranepura
    Isabella Joseph
    Braham Berg

Project Partners

  • A Philip Randolph Square Neighborhood Alliance

  • Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership

  • David Brody Bond Architects and Planners

  • J.P. Morgan

  • Harlem Sculpture Gardens

  • Manhattan Borough President's Office

  • New York City Department of Transportation

  • New York City Department of Housing Preservation & Development

  • Spitzer School of Architecture

  • The City of New York Community Board 9

  • The Grove School of Engineering

Advisory Board

  • Joy Bailey Bryant

    Lord Cultural Resources

  • Roger Fortune

    The Stahl Organization

  • Claire Weisz

    WXY

  • Rossie Turman III

    Lowenstein Sandler LLP

  • Phillip Thompson

    MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning

  • Tracey Knuckles

    Bloomberg Associates

  • Marta Gutman

    CCNY

  • Jackie Wong

    McKinsey

Funders

And last but not least, Curtis Archer will be joining us to close out the day. Since January 2006, Curtis Archer has served as President of the Harlem Community Development Corporation. He sees his role as essential in enhancing the economic climate
We're grateful to have Beatrice Sibblies joining us. Beatrice Sibblies is the managing partner of BOS Development, a Harlem-based real estate development and brokerage firm that works in partnership with faith-based communities, opportunity zone st
And we're thrilled to be joined by Marc Norman Marc Norman is the Larry & Klara Silverstein Chair in Real Estate Development & Investment, and Associate Dean of the Schack Institute of Real Estate at New York University. A renowned urban pla
First up on the panel is the estimable Kenneth Knuckles. Kenneth J. Knuckles, former Chief Executive Officer and President of UMEZ, is a prominent business and civic leader from the Bronx who has distinguished himself over the past two decades as an
Finally, for our last panel of the day. We're excited to have Bond Center's own Shawn Rickenbacker as the moderator for this discussion about the evolution of 125th Street. Shawn L. Rickenbacker is a trained architect, urbanist, and urban data resea

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Our mission is to build upon the philosophy of architect and activist J. Max Bond Jr. to advance broad solutions that help realize the empowering capacity of the built environment.