Knowledge to Action is the recipient of the 2023 Gold Roof Award under the National Housing Strategy. This award recognizes the BCSTH project: Practical Applications of a Women-Centred Approach to Housing Design. Following on the heels of the Women-Centred Housing Design Toolkit (WCD), Knowledge to Action aims to understand how women-centred housing design can be applied practically. To do so, BCSTH partnered with three case study sites across British Columbia that currently provide housing to women and children and additionally, are embarking on developing new builds or renovations to provide needed housing for women and children in their communities. Through collaboration with the case study sites, BCSTH sought to understand how women-centred design is being applied and the barriers that hold back implementing women-centred design. From these consultations, BCSTH has compiled themes that have emerged to share with the wider community to support and advocate for the implementation of women-centred design in builds that house women and children with experiences of violence. The themes that emerged in the Knowledge to Action Report are: 

• Program Operations Should Inform Design
• Women with Lived Experience are Interested in Co-Creating Their Housing 
• Architects Should be Educated on Women-Centred Design & Why it is Important from the Outset
• Women with Lived Experience Feel Safer and a Stronger Sense of Community when Women-Centred Housing Design is Applied
• A Formalized Provincial Community of Practice (CoP) Could Support Anti-Violence Members in Developing Housing Projects.

Thank you to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) for supporting this work.