Resources
A platform to collect resources related to race, space, and the complicity of design in an inherently racist world.
These resources range from multi media documents and reading lists to PDFs, articles, and lists of design studios.
Please explore and actively engage with these resources, calls to actions, and student demands.
Multimedia
Addiction in the BIPOC community
December 21, 2021
It is an unfortunate reality that there is real inequity and systemic racism in our health care system that disproportionately affects the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) community, making it more likely that they will receive less or inadequate care for a SUD. Here is an educational guide covering addiction and the BIPOC community to spread awareness on the health disparities that are apparent in the US.
This article answers the following questions:
-What Are Common Barriers to Treatment?
-What Are Authorities Doing?
-What Resources are available?
Go check it out!
Black Voices On the City
September 24, 2020
One of the most important guiding questions in anti-racism teachings is “Who am I/who are we to do this work?” We owe users of this guide our answer to that question so they can hold us accountable as we exercise our privileges to fight anti-Black racism in the field of urban planning. We are a group of majority non-Black graduate students and alumni whose lives have benefited from intersections with other forms of privilege, such as being male and cisgender or having access to family wealth and higher education. Some of us also identify as queers, feminists, and immigrants. We come to this work with a recognition that these identities produce a number of limitations and blindspots, which is why we are calling on everyone with an interest in tackling anti-Blackness within urban planning to collaborate with us and critique our work. For additional information on how we inform our allyship, please see Amélie Lamont’s Guide to Allyship.
The Visibility Project
Yale School of Architecture
July 30, 2020
The Visibility Project is an initiative by concerned students and alumni of the Yale School of Architecture to analyze the deeply entrenched prejudices and biases that exist within architectural institutions, beginning with our own.
Dark Matter University
July 30, 2020
An anti-racist design justice school collectively seeking the radical transformation of education and practice toward a just future. See the website for the full roster.
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth Documentary
Unicorn Stencil Doc Films
July 7, 2020
STREAMING FREE UNTIL JULY 31
Destroyed in a dramatic and highly-publicized implosion, the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex has become a widespread symbol of failure amongst architects, politicians and policy makers. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth explores the social, economic and legislative issues that led to the decline of conventional public housing in America, and the city centers in which they resided, while tracing the personal and poignant narratives of several of the project's residents. In the post-War years, the American city changed in ways that made it unrecognizable from a generation earlier, privileging some and leaving others in its wake. The next time the city changes, remember Pruitt-Igoe.
Segregated By Design Documentary
Mark Lopez & Richard Rothstein
July 4, 2020
‘Segregated By Design’ examines the forgotten history of how our federal, state and local governments unconstitutionally segregated every major metropolitan area in America through law and policy.
Race, Architecture, Social Equity
Daniel Barber
July 2, 2020
A platform that collects multi media sources on the topic of race and architecture.
Anti-Racism Resource Guide
Taubman College Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Team
June 30, 2020
This guide is intended as a collective space for learning, support, and sharing. Throughout the guide, you will find multiple ways of accessing the same information and ways you can contribute to racial equity in your personal and professional life.
Global Design Practice: Themes, Critiques, and Radical Alternatives
Aneesha Dharwadker
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
June 26, 2020
This multi-media list includes case studies from the course along with reading selections from key figures in contemporary design thinking and practice. These resources are organized into nine themes that reflect the breadth and urgency of the questions that are currently animating the field. It also suggests that design practice case studies—interrogating how practices represent themselves online through mission statements, graphic branding, and project selection—can be valuable when viewed through the lens of scholarly critique.
Race/Architecture/Decolonization Design Resources
The Architecture Lobby Toronto
June 26, 2020
A growing list of resources from books and PDFs to articles and audio/visual resources that address race, decolonization, and architecture.
Anti-Racism Design Resources
SPACE INDUSTRIES and ELL
June 21, 2020
This document is intended to uplift Black design communities, serve as a resource for communities in need of pro bono design services, and serve as a resource to non-Black and white people to deepen our anti-racism work within design disciplines. If you haven’t engaged in anti-racism work in the past, start now. Feel free to circulate this document on social media and with your friends, family, and colleagues.
Articles, Books, Syllabi, & More
Financial Literacy in the Black Community
July 3, 2022
Closing the racial wealth gap in America isn't a simple fix, but many experts say education and financial literacy can help. To shed light on the topic, this article discusses:
- The impact that this knowledge gap has on the African American community
- Socioeconomic and cultural barriers
- The role of Black financial advisors
On The Futility of Listening
Black Student Alliance of GSAPP
July 30, 2020
A Statement from the Black Student Alliance at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation [BSA+GSAPP] to the Columbia GSAPP Dean, Faculty, and Administration
Unlearning Whiteness
Black Faculty of GSAPP
July 30, 2020
A Statement from the Black Faculty of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
Race, Space, and Architecture: Towards an Open Access Curriculum
Huda Tayob & Suzanne Hall
July 21, 2020
This project asks what a curriculum on space-making and race-making might look like with architecture and the
designed world as a key reference point. We engage with how understandings of race-making might be extended
through imagined and constructed forms of architecture.
Carceral Architectures
Mabel O. Wilson
July 2, 2020
An article published in 2016.
Race and Design Texts
One:Twelve
June 30, 2020
A growing list of resources, ranging from PDFs of books and articles to audio/visual resources to masterlists that address a wide range of subjects relating to the practice, theories, technology, social implications, etc of design-related fields.
Race, Space, and the Law
Desiree Valadares, UC Berkeley
June 30, 2020
This reading list explores the law’s historical role in the constitution of space, place, the body, and various other modalities of belonging in the U.S. The focus lies primarily on integrating legal history texts into architectural scholarship to examine race (and its intersections) and to trace changing legal notions of property, territory, nationhood, and citizenship. A range of scholarship, from disability studies, public health, architectural history, legal history, environmental justice, whiteness studies, immigration studies, gender and sexuality studies, animal studies, and housing and urban studies in addition to recent literature on prisons, militarization, and waste is included.
The Decolonizing Design Reader
Ramon Tejada
June 30, 2020
This reader is an attempt to gather materials to begin the process of EXPANDING and making design more inclusive. It is about reading and engaging with others.
It is by far from complete, actually, it will never be finished. We have so much to read and consider to expand design. ¡Adelante!
Space/Race
June 30, 2020
This reading list was collectively produced by a group of architectural historians, art historians, architects, and urbanists in reaction to the August 2017 events in Charlottesville. We have assembled a series of readings on how race and racism are constructed with spatial means, and on how in turn space can be shaped by racism. The list is meant primarily as a teaching resource and is open for viewing and sharing. See link for list of all contributors.