Plan Design Coordinator jobs in California

Organization: Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI)
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Start Date: Immediately
Closing Date: When Filled

Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) is a team of diverse urbanists—landscape architects, urban planners, community organizers, and engineers—united by our shared commitment to building equity, justice, and resilience in communities through design. A BIPOC- and woman-led firm founded in 2006, KDI comprises 50 professionals working from four offices: Los Angeles, Eastern Coachella Valley, Nairobi, and Stockholm.

Job Description
KDI is currently seeking a Design Coordinator to help design projects that advance racial, environmental, economic, and physical equity in neighborhoods and cities across Southern California. We’re looking for someone who is passionate about building community power in low-income communities of color, and is interested in working with residents on design, planning, and policy projects to create positive change in their neighborhoods and beyond.

The Design Coordinator will work in a highly collaborative interdisciplinary studio environment including urban planners, industrial designers, community organizers, and program development specialists. The candidate should excel in design thinking with strong representation skills. The Design Coordinator will work on a range of projects, from designing parks and shade structures, to gender equity research, to the development of community engagement activities for environmental justice campaigns.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Support the design of projects including vacant lot transformations, site-scale architecture, parks, river greenways, healthy living neighborhood planning and affordable housing campuses;
• Create site renderings, illustrations, and 3D models for a variety of scales and design types;
• Assist with CAD drawing set creation for schematic through construction documentation;
• Assist with community workshop design and facilitation, and create innovative outreach and engagement strategies rooted in community and accessibility.

Qualifications

• 1-3 years’ experience with landscape architectural design work;
• Accredited Undergraduate or Master’s Degree in Landscape Architecture;
• Comfortable leading or supporting community workshops;
• Excellent skills in Adobe CS and Rhino;
• Excellent skills in AutoCAD;
• Strong commitment to social justice;
• Strong verbal, written, and graphic communication skills;
• Fluency in Spanish (verbal and written) preferred;
• Driver’s license required; must be willing and able to travel by car to meetings, events, etc.

Location Schedule
This is an In-Person position (with flexible schedule options). In addition, all of our projects require community engagement work that often happens in the evenings or on weekends, when residents are most often available. We offer a compensatory time policy to account for this requirement.

Salary: $65-$70k
Benefits include: Medical, Dental, Vision, Life Ins., 401k, Paid time off

How to Apply
Send electronic copy of cover letter, resume, writing sample, and up to five images of visual representation (e.g. GIS mapping, images from final presentation boards or reports, hand drawn sketches, etc.) to: LAJobs@kounkuey.org
Subject Heading: Design Coordinator: Your Name

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their race, religion, ancestry, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, marital status or medical condition. We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance.