R. T. Cleveland, AICP (he/him/his)

Associate | Healthcare Designer | Urban Planner
SmithGroup
Chicago, Illinois

Taft Cleveland, AICP, Associate AIA, NOMA is an architectural designer and urban planner at SmithGroup, where he specializes in healthcare facility design. Guided by his calling as an ordained minister and the principle to “speak up for the voiceless, speak out for justice, and stand with the marginalized,” Taft centers health equity, design justice, and meaningful community engagement in his work. His research advances ethical, community-centered design practices that address structural inequities and improve health outcomes.

As the creator of the C.A.R.E. Framework, Taft integrates justice-driven principles into healthcare environments, directly confronting racial disparities in historically marginalized communities. He is a co‑founder of the Health Equity Design Collaborative, a research think tank dedicated to dismantling health inequities through design innovation, and a contributor to the Future Healthcare Designers Mentoring Network on LinkedIn. He also launched the HBCU Partnership Program, expanding equity, diversity, and inclusion within design education and professional pipelines.

Taft’s scholarship includes contributions to Peace by Design (Routledge) and a forthcoming chapter on environmental justice in Social and Behavioral Factors in Environmental Design (Routledge).

He holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Florida A&M University and dual Master’s degrees in Architecture and Urban Planning from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

Disclosure information not submitted.

Presentation(s):

• #PlanningWhileBlack: Detroit Perspectives for Deepening Your Practice

  Sunday, April 26, 2026
  2:00 PM - 2:45 PM CT