Creating inclusive or equitable spaces can mean different things to different people.
All too often, this conversation stops at compliance regulations. Think ADA ramps, accessible bathrooms, and your standard set of checklists that a public space or building must attend to to meet a barely understood set of requirements.
What happens when inclusion, accessibility, equity, and community belonging are not the afterthought of a design, but the starting point?
That’s the vision driving CIDIE Certification, short for Community-Informed Design for Innovative Environments. In a recent conversation with CIDIE Founder Victoria Lanteigne, PhD, WELL AP, we explored the story behind this emerging standard and how it’s reshaping our thinking about equity in the built environment.
The Origin of CIDIE: From Policy to Practice
Victoria’s journey began not in design but in policy. As a longtime advocate working in public policy and inclusive consulting, she noticed a gap: while the building certification industry was expanding, there was a lack of structured guidance on how to embed equity and social justice directly into the design process.
“CIDIE is really a result of me seeing a gap in market resources and then doing research specifically to address that gap,” Victoria said. “I was practicing universal design as a consultant for many years, but I started thinking about other groups that are marginalized by the built environment. Women, LGBTQIA+ communities, culture, race, religion—all of these things shape how individuals experience space.”
Recognizing the lack of clear, actionable design guidance for embedding equity, Victoria began a research journey that ultimately led to the development of the CIDIE Standard—a framework grounded in real community experiences and adaptable design strategies.
What Makes CIDIE Different
At its core, CIDIE is a certification standard for buildings and public spaces. But its unique flair is in its approach to design philosophy and application.
CIDIE is:
- Design-first: Unlike broader standards that address operations or materials, CIDIE zeroes in on design strategies and their impact on communities.
- Equity-centered: The standard moves beyond disability inclusion alone to address race, culture, gender identity, religion, and more.
- Flexible by nature: Every CIDIE-certified project looks different, because each one reflects the lived experiences of the community it serves.
“CIDIE is uniquely focused on providing design strategies that are directly informed by the community,” Victoria said. “It starts at the very beginning of a project by involving people who are traditionally left out of the process, and it follows through all the way to the final design decisions and the end-user experience in the space.”
Community-Informed, Not Just Community-Engaged
CIDIE introduces a key shift in thinking: from traditional “community engagement” to “community-informed design.”
“Rather than a passive way to engage individuals, it's really the community or end users that are informing the design from the start,” Victoria said. “They have an active role in shaping that space.”
This approach ensures that those who are typically left out of the design conversation are brought in at the beginning, with their needs, values, and lived experiences driving the process. It moves beyond generic definitions of inclusion and instead asks: What does equity look like for this specific community, in this specific space?
By elevating underrepresented voices and encouraging participation that’s not just symbolic but structurally integrated, CIDIE allows communities to define what dignity, safety, and belonging mean on their own terms.
And it helps them translate those goals into actionable design decisions.
A Flexible Model for Equitable Design
Some certification systems aim for uniformity where every project must meet the same requirements in the same way. CIDIE is intentionally different.
At the Arkansas School for the Blind and Deaf, the process surfaced priorities around autonomy, safety, and sensory accessibility. Meanwhile, at Harvey Milk Plaza in San Francisco, the community emphasized visibility, safety, and activism for LGBTQIA+ individuals.
“The end results are always different,” Victoria said. “With CIDIE, it has to be so much more flexible, because that’s how you capture equity-centered environments. It can’t be codified.”
CIDIE can be applied across a wide range of building and space types. As is evident, all places, from community plazas and schools to commercial environments, can pursue CIDIE Certification.
“The unifying trait that all CIDIE projects should have is that they're doing meaningful community engagement,” said Victoria. “If that's happening, then you're eligible.”
Partnership with SEAM and NC State: Transparency and Rigor
CIDIE isn’t doing this work alone. It has partnered with SEAM, a global certification focused on social equity, to manage certification.
“I don't want to be the same entity that develops the standard, certifies the standard, reviews the material,” Victoria said. “What we're doing with SEAM is holding the certification work within SEAM.”
CIDIE has also partnered with North Carolina State University, where Victoria co-directs the Alliance for Inclusive Design. NC State serves as CIDIE’s third-party reviewer, bringing academic rigor to the evaluation process.
The CIDIE Framework: Goals + Guidelines
CIDIE is built on two frameworks developed through Victoria’s doctoral research:
- CIDIE Goals Framework: A way to gather and categorize community feedback. Themes like safety, autonomy, and community activation tend to arise again and again. The framework helps teams identify and organize that data.
- CIDIE Design Guidelines: Practical strategies that link those community goals to built environment decisions. For example, Harvey Milk Plaza added pedestals and pushed transit stairs back 20 feet to support community gathering—a design tied directly to a community-identified goal.
“The CIDIE Goals Framework helps practitioners broaden how we seek input from communities,” said Victoria. “And the design guidelines help teams translate that input into tangible strategies.”
Process and Outcome: CIDIE’s Two Certifications
CIDIE offers two certification tracks:
- Design Certification: Recognizes a rigorous community-informed design process.
- Experience Certification: Evaluates post-occupancy outcomes and end-user experiences.
“I wanted to acknowledge the effort that goes behind doing really thoughtful community engagement and translating that into design,” Victoria said. “The evaluation of the experiences of end users becomes equally as critical.”
Building for the Future
As CIDIE moves from pilot to Version 1, a formal steering committee and technical advisory group will help guide its evolution. The call is out for members to join this group, and they will focus on key updates to the pilot program as it prepares for launch in 2026.
Other opportunities to get involved with CIDIE include the CIDIE Incubator program to help further drive the innovation and evolution of the standard. Learn more about the CIDIE Incubator program at the CIDIE website.
Bringing change and shaping the future for equity, inclusion, and social justice is a long story—but one Victoria is excited to keep writing.
“We have that book of data for sustainability. We have that book of data for health. We don’t yet have it for social impact, equity, or inclusive design,” said Victoria. “Even though it's been around for decades, there's not a lot of comprehensive research. This is the first step to making that case.”
Looking to get involved?
- Explore certification: cidiecertified.com
- Learn more about supporting CIDIE through the CIDIE Incubator
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