Overview & Mission

The Charleston Civic Design Center serves the community as an advocate for excellence in the design of the civic realm. The CCDC provides educational resources to make positive urban design accessible to the community, promotes a collaborative environment for citizen participation in the making of the city, and initiates innovative responses to the challenges and opportunities facing the city. Charleston is recognized as an exemplar of good city-making, and its traditions guide our efforts to inspire a progressive future for the city.

The Charleston Civic Design Center is an urban design initiative of the City of Charleston to promote a positive vision for the future of the city. The CCDC is the result of the leadership of Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. to elevate the discourse on urban design in the city, and was a major recommendation of the Downtown Plan and the Downtown Partnership as a means to implementing the plan’s urban design goals.

The role of the CCDC is to enhance the quality of life in Charleston by engaging the community in creating a dynamic urban design direction for the city. The Center collaborates with citizens, neighborhood organizations, property owners, developers, interest groups, design professionals, city departments and elected officials to build upon the city’s progressive traditions and to promote the highest standards for community design. The CCDC helps to guide citizen involvement towards a productive definition of Charleston’s identity, promoting a forum for public dialog by sponsoring lectures, symposia, exhibitions, and design workshops. It engages difficult urban design challenges for the future of the city, with an integrated urban design studio that works across disciplines to foster innovation and sensitivity in promoting the best Charleston possible.

The Center aims to demonstrate in concept and in detail how civic discourse can bridge often divergent commitments: historic preservation and urban progress; neighborhood stabilization and gentrification; quality of life and economic development; continuity and change. In this way, a more inclusive and integrative approach to making the city can flourish, raising the processes of urban design and community development in Charleston to a new level of civic art.