YWCA Grilles

This work is part of a Smithsonian exhibit highlighting socially responsible design.

Jennifer designed these artful grilles as a security measure for the YWCA. While the grilles serve to protect, they also serve to provide beauty as well as security. Being able to consider multiple needs within design is Weddermann Architecture’s signature.

In 2016, Jennifer Weddermann was approached by a group of women in New York City who had been blogging about socially responsible design and had come across the project she did for the YWCA shelter in 2009.

An exhibition of 60 collaborative designs from throughout the United States and across borders, By the People challenges the country’s persistent social and economic inequality. Curator of Socially Responsible Design Cynthia E. Smith conducted over two years of field research—traveling to shrinking post-industrial cities, sprawling metro regions, struggling rural towns, areas impacted by natural and man-made disasters, and places of persistent poverty—in search of design for more inclusive and sustainable communities. Presented in the Barbara and Morton Mandel Design Gallery and the museum’s Process Lab, the exhibition delivers a powerful message of optimism for achieving a more just and equitable society for all Americans through design.