In different ways, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement have recently brought into sharp focus the direct relationship between the built environment—its disciplines, practices, pedagogies, and entanglements—and the inequities that it constructs. Now is a crucial moment of reckoning when individuals and institutions must seek to understand the visible, invisible, and multidimensional manifestations and origins of these injustices, from the scarcity of affordable housing to lack of access to clean water, from exclusionary historiography to the systemic racism that has coursed through the design professions. How we as architects, developers, preservationists, scholars, students, teachers, and urbanists critically question and dismantle those inequities must be a determined focus of our collaborative efforts moving forward.
This webpage features a collection of resources on GSAPP’s ongoing work on Equity. This list will continue to be updated. If you have suggestions or comments, please reach out to communications@arch.columbia.edu.
January 15, 2021
This conversation among Rebecca M. Brown, Swati Chattopadhyay, Avishek Ray, and Ateya Khorakiwala focused on the histories of the built environment in the wake of their failures during this past year through the pandemic. If we locate the history of infrastructure in the techno-scientific rationalities of colonial extractivisms and post-colonial developmentalism, then what have been the vectors of power that are crystalized in the built environment that have determined the betrayal of laboring bodies?
January 15, 2021
This conversation among Mary McLeod, Victoria Rosner, Patricia Morton, and Roberta Washington focused on Pioneering Women of American Architecture, an online resource co-directed by McLeod and Rosner which profiles fifty women (all born prior to 1940) who have made important contributions to American architecture.
November 13, 2020
A introduction to Mapping the New Politics of Care by Laura Kurgan, Dare Brawley, and Jia Zhang from the Center for Spatial Research and collaborators Gregg Gonsalves, Suzan Iloglu, and Thomas Thornhill from the Yale School of Public Health. Graduate researchers Caitlin Blanchfield, Nelson de Jesus Ubri, Spenser A. Krut, Nadine Fattaleh, Adeline Chum, Adam Vosburgh also presented related research on COVID-19-related data.
October 29, 2020
Launch and discussion of the book Paths to Prison: On the Architectures of Carcerality, published by Columbia Books on Architecture and the City and edited by Isabelle Kirkham-Lewitt. Book contributors include Adrienne Brown, Stephen Dillon, Jarrett M. Drake, Sable Elyse Smith, James Graham, Leslie Lodwick, Dylan Rodríguez, Anne Spice, Brett Story, Jasmine Syedullah, Mabel O. Wilson, and Wendy L. Wright.
October 8, 2020 Conversation among Gregg Bleam, Diane Brown Townes, Frank Dukes, Eric Höweler, Eto Otitigbe, Mabel O. Wilson, and J. Meejin Yoon, moderated by Farah Jasmine Griffin. Co-presented by Columbia University’s School of the Arts, Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies, and Institute for Research in African-American Studies, together with Cornell AAP, the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg Center, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Queens Museum.
October 2, 2020
Leslie Kern, author of Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World, and Anna Puigjaner, author of Kitchenless City, discuss their research towards an intersectional feminist urban future. Moderated by Jack Halberstam. Co-presented by the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Columbia University.
September 25, 2020
This discussion brings together architects, theorists, and historians whose perspectives on human impairment reimagine the reconstruction and maintenance of the built past. Organized and moderated by David Gissen, in discussion with Georgina Kleege, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Rob Thomson, Sun Young Park, and Wanda Katja Liebermann.
September 18, 2020
A symposium to present Race and Modern Architecture: A Critical History from the Enlightenment to the Present, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Presentations by book contributors Esra Akcan, Adrienne Brown, Luis E. Carranza, Jiat-Hwee Chang, Mark Crinson, Kenny Cupers, Addison Godel, Dianne Harris, Andrew Herscher, Reinhold Martin, Brian L. McLaren, Joanna Merwood-Salisbury, Peter Minosh, Adedoyin Teriba, and Lisa Uddin. Moderated by the editors Mabel O. Wilson, Irene Cheng, and Charles L. Davis.
September 11, 2020
The first in a series of discussions acknowledging and exploring the history of Columbia University’s colonialist and discriminatory practices against Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Participants includes Erica Avrami; Mark Barksdale; Eric Foner; Mindy Fullilove; and Galia Solomonoff.
February 14, 2020
The book Stone Men: The Palestinians Who Built Israel by Andrew Ross focuses largely on the stone and marble industry of the West Bank its relationship to Palestinian labor. It asks: What kinds of rights should accrue from that labor and how do their contributions feed into the debate about civil and political rights in the “one-state” scenario now being debated for the region? This discussion unpacks arguments from the book through a conversation among Andrew Ross, Kadambari Baxi, Jordan Carver, Laura Diamond Dixit, Lindsey Wikstrom, and Mabel O. Wilson. Organized by Who Builds Your Architecture? and co-presented by Columbia’s Center for Palestine Studies.
Stonewall 50: Defining LGBTQ Site Preservation
April 6, 2019
This symposium examines the progress and challenges of preserving sites of significance to LGBTQ communities and, by extension, to the heritage of cities and nations around the world. Participants include Andrew Dolkart, Amanda Davis, Cate Fosl, Nick Large, Shayne Watson, Ken Lustbader, Ankit Bhuptani, Matt Cook, Michael Ighodaro, Jay Shockley, Susan Ferentinos, Barbara Lau, and Ken Turino. Co-organized by NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, QSAPP and the Office of the University Chaplain as part of the Stonewall 50 Consortium.
March 23, 2018
This event presents efforts from the global to the local focused on addressing health inequities. Keynote lecture by Jason Corburn followed by a conversation among Nupur Chaudhury, Malo Hutson, and Mandu Sen moderated by Justin Garrett Moore.
Listen to Malo Huston in Podcast episode #33
April 13, 2018
Critically questioning the colonial practices of planning, architecture, and engineering, the presentation by Pierre Bélanger seeks to contribute a basis for undermining the industrial underpinnings and imperialist hegemonies that lie on, above, and below the surface of contemporary settler-state space whose foundations rely and rest on the perpetuation of spatial inequities, environmental injustices, and cultural inhumanities. The event includes an introduction by Reinhold Martin and is followed by a conversation with Kate Orff. Organized by the Buell Center.
November 17, 2017
Organized by Juan Herreros with Enrique Walker, the symposium hosts 15 international firms to discuss their respective contexts, ambitions, and influences relevant to their founding and early years, followed by joint discussions on their experiences and strategies.
October 6, 2017
Architecture participates, centrally, in defining modes of life, whether for the privileged or the dispossessed—designing and building the boundaries between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” This fundamental reality of architectural practice need not inspire either nihilism or defensiveness but should rather be understood, quite simply, as the terrain we navigate. Naming these complicities and the injustices they perpetuate is a first step toward addressing them. Participants include Karen Abrams, Kadambari Baxi, Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi, Caitlin Blanchfield, James Graham, and Jacob Moore. Organized by the Avery Review at Columbia GSAPP.
February 15, 2017
The GSAPP community and invited guests discuss the role of architecture as a tool for grassroots mobilization and critical resistance. How are architects and designers engaging and empowering local communities to have a voice in urban design and policy? Participants include Ifeoma Ebo, Ingrid Haftel, Quardean Lewis-Allen, Betsy MacLean, Quilian Riano, and David Smiley.
April 15, 2016
This event inaugurates the Buell Center’s research project “Power,” which extends the Center’s recent work on housing, inequality, and real estate into another dimension of the planetary commons. Participants include Phillip Wegner, Edward Eigen, Jeanne Haffner, Paige West, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Reinhold Martin. Presented by the Buell Center.
January 22, 2016
Book launch for The Art of Inequality. A discussion among Jesse Keenan, Peter Marcuse, Reinhold Martin, Jacob Moore, Susanne Schindler, and Galia Solomonoff. Organized by the Buell Center and co-sponsored by 6on6.
November 6, 2015
Rather than reject outright a concept of global education, this forum instead asks participants to consider what it would mean to truly make higher education globally accessible and what aims such an education would need to address. What hypothetical curricula, exchanges, funding structures, and institutional relations would respect societies’ and individuals’ rights to intellectual self-determination without, however, positing a priori assumptions of differing educational needs based on cultural or class distinctions? Participants include Davarian Baldwin, Jamyung Choi, Saskia Cornes, Susan Gillespie, Denise Ferreira Da Silva, Ruth Hayhoe, Hidetaka Hirota, Laura Kurgan, Jacques Lezra, Lydia Liu, Reinhold Martin, Noëleen Murray, Dan-el Padilla Peralta, Bruce Robbins, Noliwe Rooks, Felicity Scott, Ajay Singh Chaudhary, Mark C. Taylor, Mark Wigley, Grant Wythoff, and Stephen Zacks. Organized by Ginger Nolan and Jamyung Choi. Co-sponsored by the Heyman Center, Institute of Comparative Literature & Society, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, and GSAPP.
April 3, 2015
Grounded in their books Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space and Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Landscape, scholars Keller Easterling and Saskia Sassen, respectively, present recent writings on equity, built and representational space, and the global economy.
Listen to Keller Easterling in Podcast episode #48
February 6, 2015
Organized in response to the failure to indict the murderers of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and countless other innocent and unarmed citizens—and the massive swelling of anger, grief, and public protest that followed—this urgent and interdisciplinary conversation explores race, justice, and urban space today. Participants include Kathy Boudin, Vishaan Chakrabarti, Suzanne Goldberg, Mario Gooden, Kimberley Johnson, Laura Kurgan, Reinhold Martin, V. Mitch McEwen, Dread Scott, Stacey Sutton, Kendall Thomas, and Mabel Wilson. Organized by GSAPP, Columbia’s Center for Justice, CURE, and the Buell Center.
December 11, 2014
Taking the “Arab City” and “Islamic Architecture” as sites of investigation, this symposium critically engages contemporary architectural and urban production in the Middle East in an effort to move beyond reductive notions of identity, myths of authenticity, the fetishizing of tradition, or the resilience of constructed oppositions between tradition and modernity. Participants include Ashraf Abdallah, Senan Abdelqader, Nadia Abu-El-Haj, Mohammad al-Asad, Suad Amiry, George Arbid, Mohamed Elshahed, Yasser Elsheshtawy, Rania Ghosn, Saba Innab, Ziad Jamaleddine, Ahmed Kanna, Bernard Khoury, Laura Kurgan, Adrian Lahoud, Ali Mangera, Reinhold Martin, Magda Mostafa, Nicolai Ouroussoff, Nasser Rabbat, Hashim Sarkis, Felicity Scott, Hala Warde, Enrique Walker, Mark Wasiuta, Eyal Weizman, Mabel Wilson, and Gwendolyn Wright. Co-organized with Studio-X Amman.
March 17, 2021
Gabrielle Bullock is a Principal and Director of Global Diversity for Perkins+Will, has shaped an architectural career that focuses on her two passions: design and social justice. Response by Juan Herreros.
February 8, 2021
Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman are principals in Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, a research-based political and architectural practice in San Diego transgressing conventional boundaries between theory and practice, and merging the fields of architecture and urbanism, political theory and urban policy. Response by Lola Ben-Alon.
November 16, 2020
Kenneth Frampton Endowed Lecture
Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO is a Mexico City-based architecture studio, founded in 2004. At the core of the studio’s practice is an analysis of the context surrounding projects, which scale from masterplans to affordable housing typologies. Response by Enrique Walker.
November 9, 2020
Majora Carter is a real estate developer, urban revitalization strategy consultant, MacArthur Fellow and Peabody Award winning broadcaster. Carter combines her corporate consulting practice focused on talent-retention, and applies it to reducing Brain Drain in American low-status communities. Response by Mario Gooden.
October 19, 2020
As Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives, Deputy Mayor Thompson is responsible for spearheading a diverse collection of priority initiatives. This expansive portfolio includes Democracy NYC, the Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprises Program, the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development, the Office of the Census, and the Young Men’s Initiative. Response by Weiping Wu.
October 12, 2020
Al Borde is a Quito, Ecuador-based studio, whose Principals David Barragán, Esteban Benavides, Marialuisa Borja, and Pascual Gangotena champion an improvisational, collaborative approach to design. Resisting theory and dogma, their projects seek to enhance local development and engage communities in social innovation. Response by Juan Herreros.
September 21, 2020
Lee is the Design Principal of Colloqate, a New Orleans–based multidisciplinary architecture and design justice practice focused on expanding community access to, and building power through the design of social, civic, and cultural spaces. Their mission is to intentionally organize, advocate, and design spaces of racial, social, and cultural equity.
March 2, 2020
In his talk “Prototyping Better Futures,” Norman discusses his work addressing affordability and equity in housing. Response by Hilary Sample and Bernadette Baird-Zars.
Listen to Marc Norman in Podcast episode #90
October 21, 2019
Gooden’s performance “Working on Water” is an exploration of architecture and the black ontology of water—from the ship hulls of the Middle Passage, to the segregated waters of public swimming pools and beaches during the Jim Crow era, to the contemporary conditions of forced migration due to climate change. Response by Amale Andraos.
Listen to Mario Gooden in Podcast Episode #84
February 27, 2019
Lahoud’s lecture, “Rights of Future Generations,” introduces the curatorial program for the inaugural edition of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial. The project aims to radically decolonize architectural and design discourses, as well as their exhibition platforms. Response by Mark Wasiuta and Felicity Scott.
Listen to Adrian Lahoudin Podcast Episode #68
February 25, 2019
Roy talks about the city in the age of trumpism, focusing on sanctuary cities and what they tell us about space and sovereignty. In doing so, Roy is interested in interrogating both liberal inclusion and radical hospitality, thereby shifting the discussion of cosmopolitanism to what she calls the “threshold of empire.” Response by Weiping Wu.
Listen to Ananya Roy in Podcast Episode #67
November 8, 2018
LA-Más co-founders Leung and Timme introduce the work of their Los Angeles-based non-profit urban design organization, which helps lower-income and underserved communities shape their future through policy and architecture. La Mas envisions a world where city growth is equitable and self-directed—where the best local solutions are brought to a city-wide scale. Response by Kate Orff.
Listen to Helen Leung and Elizabeth Timme in Podcast Episode #60
January 22, 2018
Montiel discusses how her research-based practice is informed by everyday life in Mexico City. Her lecture addresses her efforts to “transform public space into place” and to approach design as a process. Response by Amale Andraos.
Listen to Rozana Montiel in Podcast Episode #42
October 16, 2017
Noero’s lecture “Architecture in a Noisy Democracy” discusses how his work maintains local expertise and seeks to empower individuals in their environment. Highlighted projects include a chapel and house for Desmond Tutu and The Red Location Museum in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth, which is designed as a tribute to the struggle against Apartheid. Response by Hilary Sample.
Listen to Rozana Montiel in Podcast Episode #31
October 2, 2017
Haggerty’s lecture, “Housing Is a Verb,” is organized around a statement and two questions: (1) the process of designing housing matters; (2) who gets to design housing and the housing process?; and (3) how do we think in terms of designing community housing systems? Response by Kate Orff.
Listen to Rosanne Haggerty in Podcast Episode #29
October 10, 2016
Hood presents recent projects including a landscape for Cooper Hewitt’s Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden in NYC, NY; Nauck Town Square in Arlington, VA—a project that honors the history of a community founded by freed African Americans prior to Emancipation; and a landscape for the International African American Museum in Charleston, SC which takes cues from the tradition of ‘hush harbors’. Response by Kate Orff.
September 20, 2016
Malo Huston discusses the inextricable link between community development and health equity. The lecture addresses the challenges and opportunities that face urban planners, designers, architects, and health professionals in their efforts to transform the built environment and support urban communities. Response by Weiping Wu.
Listen to Malo Hutson in Podcast episode #33
January 25, 2016
Rural Urban Framework co-founders Bolchover and Lin introduce the work of their research and design collaborative Rural Urban Framework, which focuses on the intersection of two scales: the physical reality of architecture versus the social, political, and economic reality of urban forces. Presented projects include schools, community centers, villages, and infrastructure. Response by Amale Andraos.
May 13, 2015
Maltzan states that, in the face of complex social, political, physical contexts such as Los Angeles, he’s come to “believe in architecture’s ability to possess a broader range of capacities and abilities that allow it to be impactful at a level of a building but also at the level of the discipline.” This lecture introduces several housing projects including New Carver Apartments, Star Apartments, and One Santa Fe housing); Playa Vista Park; and Sixth Street Viaduct. Response by Hilary Sample.
November 20, 2014
In this conversation, iconic activist and scholar Angela Davis is joined by Dean Amale Andraos and Gwendolyn Wright to discuss the physical structures of incarceration, and the myriad connections between militarized policing of everyday life in the US—disproportionately affecting low-income African Americans, women, and trans populations—and Occupied Palestine today.
Ed Poteat, Spring 2021, Real Estate Development
Richard Froehlich, Fall 2020, Real Estate Development
Richard Froehlich, Fall 2020, Real Estate Development
Ateya Khorakiwala, Fall 2020, Architecture
Reinhold Martin, Fall 2020, Architecture
Lance Freeman, Fall 2020, Urban Planning
Justin Moore, Fall 2020, Urban Design
Ateya Khorakiwala, Fall 2020, Architecture
Anna Puigjaner, Fall 2020, Architecture and Urban Design
Graham Trelstad, Fall 2020, Urban Planning
Ed Poteat, Spring 2020, Real Estate Development
Pedro Rivera, Spring 2020, Architecture
Nicolai Ouroussoff, Spring 2020, History/Theory
Caitlin Blanchfield, Spring 2020, History/Theory
Mark Wasiuta, Spring 2020, History/Theory
Richard Plunz & Douglas Woodward, Spring 2020, Architecture and Urban Planning
Moira O’Neill, Spring 2020, Urban Planning
Sara Zewde, Spring 2020, Urban Design
Mario Gooden, Spring 2020, History/Theory
Michael Bell Spring 2020, History/Theory
Bryony Roberts, Spring 2020, History/Theory
Mario Gooden, Spring 2020, Architecture
Ziad Jamaleddine, Spring 2020, Architecture
Lance Freeman, Spring 2020, Urban Planning
Anna Puigjaner, Spring 2020, Architecture
Hiba Bou Akar, Spring 2020, Urban Planning
David Smiley, Spring 2020, Urban Design
Erica Avrami, Spring 2020, Historic Preservation
Weiping Wu and Francesco Rossini, Spring 2020, Urban Planning
Anupama Rao & Ana P Lee, Spring 2020, Interdisciplinary
Jitendra Bajpai, Spring 2020, Urban Planning
Richard Froehlich, Fall 2019, Real Estate Development
Purnima Kapur, Adam Weinstein, Fall 2019, Urban Planning
Eva Hagberg, Fall 2019, History/Theory
Mabel Wilson, Fall 2019, Architecture
Sharon Davis & Tyler Survant, Fall 2019, Architecture
Ziad Jamaleddine, Fall 2019, Architecture
Felicity Scott, Fall 2019, Fall 2018, History/Theory
Maxine Griffith, Victoria Mason-Ailey, Flores Forbes, Fall 2019, Urban Planning
Hilary Sample (Coordinator), Daisy Ames, Eric Bunge, Benjamin Cadena, Gabriela Etchegaray, Adam Frampton, Mario Gooden, Galia Solomonoff, Fall 2019, Architecture
Justin Moore, Fall 2019, Urban Design
Erica Avrami and Will Raynolds, Fall 2019, Historic Preservation and Urban Planning
Erica Avrami, Fall 2019, Historic Preservation
Vishaan Chakrabarti, Fall 2019, Urban Design
Homepage Image Credit
“Mapping a New Politics of Care” by the Center for Spatial Research.
Project by Eunjin Yoo completed for the Fall 2020 “A City for Child Care” Advanced Architecture Studio 6 led by Bryony Roberts.
Project by Emily Ruopp completed for the Fall 2020 “The Architecture of Activism” Advanced Architecture Studio 6 led by Gordon Kipping.
