Yesterday, the Architectural League of New York announced the winners of its 2020 Deborah J. Norden Fund travel grants. Recent graduates Alicia Olushola Ajayi, William Doran, and Chris Starkey received financial support to study two small United States communities.

Ajayi, a graduate of the School of the Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis, and University of Colorado Boulder, will pursue a project titled “We Call It Freedom Village: Brooklyn, Illinois’s Radical Tactics of Black Place-Making.” Her research will focus on Brooklyn, Illinois, a town reportedly founded in the early 19th century by 11 African American families fleeing the slave state of Missouri for the free state of Illinois.

Doran, a graduate of the University of Kansas and Louisiana State University, and Starkey, a graduate of Yale University and Rice University, won funding for their project titled “Sheltered: Evaluating the Potential for Design to Shape Policy Toward the Goal of Inclusive, Intentional Communities for Adults with Intellectual Disabilities.” Their work will look at Senatobia, Mississippi’s Baddour Center, a supportive group home for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The Architectural League’s Deborah J. Norden Fund was established in 1995 and awards travel grants of up to $5,000 to students and recent graduates in architecture and related fields.