Focus Area
Spatial Discourse + Activism

In recent years, architecture’s potential role in undoing systems of inequality has become an important consideration in design. Architecture operates in the context of capitalism, racism, patriarchy, land dispossession, labor struggles, and environmental disaster, yet also offers potentials to counter them. Courses in this area reflect on the histories and mechanisms of design activism, social justice, advocacy, and community empowerment.

Elective Courses

  • ARCH 409, The Egalitarian Metropolis
  • ARCH 502, Building Code as Battleground: Building Law & Architect as Advocate
  • ARCH 503, Grounds for Architecture: Land History
  • ARCH 506, Design Activism + Social Justice
  • ARCH 506, Land as Spatial Practice
  • ARCH 506, Physical Planning and Design Workshop
  • ARCH 506, Radical Vernacular
  • ARCH 509, Politics of Balance

Research Clusters and Initiatives

Africa Alliance
Egalitarian Metropolis
Equity in Architectural Education Consortium
Urban Humanities, Design, and Spatial Justice

Faculty

Andrew Herscher
Professor of Architecture
Ana Morcillo Pallarés
Associate Professor of Architecture
María Arquero de Alarcón
Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning
Gabriel Cuéllar
Assistant Professor of Architecture
Irene Hwang
Lecturer in Architecture
Mireille Roddier
Associate Professor of Architecture
Craig Wilkins
Associate Professor of Architecture