Spitzer Stars

Charles Cross is a trailblazing landscape architect. His work encompasses a wide range of park, green infrastructure, and community design projects that incorporate civic engagement and participatory design. Cross is the senior landscape designer at the Detroit Collaborative Design Center as well as an adjunct professor at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture & Community Development.

Embracing the principles of social justice and sustainability, Cross believes underserved communities deserve good design and therefore should be the patrons powering a collaborative process, not just the consumers of the end product. His past experience includes work with SmithGroup/JJR, Elizabeth Kennedy Landscape Architects, and Mary Miss Studio. He has public-sector experience as well, having worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Cross is a 2018 Fulbright-Hays Fellow and a founding board member of the Black Landscape Architects Network.

Cross’s research interests include cultural asset mapping in African American, Afro Brazilian, and Afro Cuban communities, the role of geography in the Midwest in the Underground Railroad, and the Detroit River as a threshold to freedom.

“Design is an act of social justice, and all people deserve good design.”