Welcome to Territorial Empathy, we’re a nonprofit design collective that believes in the power of empathy to create positive change in our urban environments. We specialize in mitigating urban conflict through interventions that are grounded in equity and empathy.

Territorial Empathy was founded in 2018 by Zarith Pineda, a Colombian-American architectural and urban designer who specializes in spatial justice in urban spaces. Zarith founded the organization in response to the lack of intersectionality and representation in design teams and political operatives responsible for designing the built environment. She was motivated to address the fact that only 2% of architects and urbanists are women of color, a reality that perpetuates racist and inequitable planning policies. As a Latinx-led organization, Territorial Empathy is a rare but vital entity in the field of urban design. Latinx-led nonprofit organizations receive less than 1% of philanthropic funding, which underscores the importance of Territorial Empathy's mission to create a more equitable and just built environment. Currently, Territorial Empathy is the only Latina founded an led community organization in New York.

Our collective aims to address urban issues that affect marginalized communities in a meaningful way. We believe that design thinking, projects, and teams have a responsibility to inspire inclusion and connectivity. Our goal is to bring together urbanists, architects, and data scientists to work on behalf of people in places that are often overlooked particularly women, children, and migrants.

We define "territories" beyond conventional project boundaries, exploring areas beyond physical spaces and borders to include networks, climates, data, and migrations. Our territories range from urban analysis and policy proposals advocating for public school integration in New York City to transforming a former Department of Corrections bus into a community center and studying the relationship between drought in Central America and immigration. We study different types of conflicts that affect territories worldwide and use our research to develop innovative design solutions. Our goal is to create meaningful change that has a positive impact on people's lives and their communities.