Southern Design Collaborative Information

Southern Design Collaborative (Southern Deco) is a community-oriented design and development collaborative focused on the interconnectivity of people, place, and practice. Through a framework of Community Studios, we bring together creative enterprises, practitioners, organizations, and community partners across disciplines to build stronger, more connected communities. We believe the best communities are shaped by many hands—architects, planners, artisans, farmers, builders, entrepreneurs, educators, historians, artists, nonprofits, and civic leaders working together around a shared vision of place. Community Studios create a structure for these diverse practices to connect, share knowledge, develop projects, cultivate craftsmanship, support local enterprise, and create lasting social, cultural, and economic value. Through collaborative design, placemaking, adaptive reuse, education, entrepreneurship, and community development, Southern Deco helps cultivate cottage courts, neighborhoods, artisan villages, farm villages, and other place-based communities where people, place, and practice come together to thrive. Our first initiative, the Madison Artisan Village in Madison, Georgia, is bringing this framework to life—reimagining historic places as centers of creativity, enterprise, collaboration, and community life.