Home Ground Lab: The Next Chapter When we established Home Ground Lab, the word “lab” was intentional. We envisioned a space for experimentation, testing, and learning how beauty might take root in overlooked spaces and build belonging for communities impacted by displacement.
That laboratory has now done its work. Together, we’ve developed frameworks proving that beauty isn’t optional in humanitarian response; it’s infrastructure. We’ve demonstrated that communities have the right and capacity to shape their own environments with dignity and care. We’ve shown that beauty-centred design can transform not just spaces, but possibilities.
With these foundations established, the laboratory phase of Home Ground Lab has formally concluded.
Three pilot projects with community partners will be completed over the coming year, building on HGL’s foundation and demonstrating these principles in practice. These community-led beautification projects represent the next phase: taking what we learned in the lab and putting it into action in partnership with local communities.
We’re grateful to everyone who made this work possible: the donors who believed in our vision; our academic, research, and professional partners including Clark University, the American Society of Adaptation Professionals, the NeuroArts Resource Center, the Centre for Trauma, Asylum and Refugees, and Ecopsychepedia; the individual scholars and practitioners who advanced this work alongside us; colleagues across the humanitarian sector who championed beauty-centred approaches; and the community partners in displacement contexts who trusted us to work alongside them.
As we each begin this next chapter through our independent initiatives, we invite you to follow along.
To stay connected:
Dr. Devora Neumark: contact@devoraneumark.com
Stephanie Acker: stephanie.acker@clarku.edu
Home Ground Lab was a creative research and storytelling initiative housed within Clark University’s Integration and Belonging Hub. The Lab focused on the intersection of aesthetics, justice, and the built environment—exploring how beauty functions as a vital form of infrastructure in spaces often overlooked by traditional design and policy systems: refugee shelter, transitional housing, and communities shaped by displacement or marginalization.
