This is a vertical studio combining students in their second and third year of the MArch program with students in the MAAD program, and those in the final semesters of the undergraduate architecture program. The students may choose from a diverse range of options of study proposed by different faculty members. In general the studio options are grounded in a conceptual basis that invites theoretical and/or programmatic innovation. These studio options may vary from year to year.
SECTION DESCRIPTIONIn 2021, the Dixie Fire devastated homes, town centers, local economies and forests across California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. It also erased fences and lot lines, prompting many to think about the ownership of land differently. Property in the United States has long been structured to secure individual control, providing sustenance, security, and wealth by enabling the extraction of resources from the environment and profits in the real estate market. However, disasters like the Dixie Fire have exposed the limits of individual parcelization. Collective action has proved necessary to jump start downtown centers, manage forest recovery, tend the vitality of local ecosystems, and perhaps most urgently, build housing – especially affordable housing that is unsupported by the market even though so-called workforce housing is crucial for the local economy and cultural life to recover. Even further, as residents contemplate whether to relocate or rebuild, some are transferring land to non-profits and to reclamation by Indigenous Maidu people. What is emerging is a transformation found in many communities facing climate risk and volatile economies. An alternative ethic and cultural expression of land ownership is replacing extraction with regeneration, self-reliance with mutual aid. Architecture plays a crucial role in this transformation, as it defines physical boundaries, temporal exchanges, and habits of occupation, defining property not just through legal or financial means, but through spatial and social ones as well.  This studio is one of several CCA courses working in partnership with community members in Greenville and Canyon Dam—two towns in Indian Valley that were nearly destroyed by the Dixie Fire. This semester, Property in Crisis will focus on the design of affordable, so-called “workforce” housing. The goal of this studio is to envision regenerative and supportive forms of ownership realizable amidst on-the-ground conditions shaping recovery efforts in Indian Valley. We will begin by researching lives and livelihoods in Indian Valley and analyzing zoning laws that shape the Valley’s physical environment. Next, we will study inventive property case studies from around the country through the lens of three themes: collectivity, temporality, and labor. Through these first two steps, our goal will be to understand how the space of property ownership can be reimagined to support thriving and diverse public spaces, family structures, and ecosystems. This work, along with ongoing collaborative sessions with Indian Valley community members, planning officials, and property owners, will lead to the design of multi-family housing on a series of sites in Greenville and Canyon Dam. Projects may range from a cluster of duplex homes and accessory dwelling units in a downtown block to a forested RV park for seasonal workers. Students will work individually, but within clusters to explore how their designs scale up–spatially, socially, and economically–across their neighborhood and beyond. This studio is fervently dedicated to combining aspiring theories about ownership with tangible, contemporary conditions. Accordingly, we will combine playful drawings that narrate stories about a new culture of ownership with rigorous physical models defining complex urban, environmental, and social relationships. Notes:

• Travel requirement: Students are expected to join a field trip to Greenville, from midday Thursday, 10/19 to midday Sunday, 10/22. If absolutely necessary, students with previous engagements or other unavoidable obligations will be excused, but it is understood that every effort should be made to attend.  In order to participate in the field trip, students must complete the CCA Student Travel Emergency Contact Information and Release Form, which will be shared with them in advance of the trip.
• Affiliated courses: This course will share knowledge, resources, and partner contacts with Mark Donohue and Lisa Findley’s studio. We will build on work created by CCA students as interns working with the Dixie Fire Collaborative and previous studios and seminars at CCA, including Janette Kim’s fall 2022 Property in Crisis studio and two IBD studios taught by Peter Anderson (spring 2023) and Mark Donohue and Margaret Ikeda (fall 2022).
• Urban Works: This course is aligned with (but not limited to) the B.Arch Urban Works concentration.

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