This is a vertical elective combining students in their fourth and fifth year of the BArch program with students from the architecture graduate programs. The content of the elective options varies from year to year, and covers advanced topics that invite critical thinking and innovation in the area of urbanism.Section Description:Students in this seminar will experiment with inventive techniques of public engagement that can empower activism in the housing justice movement. For many decades, architects and urban designers have used surveys, post-it notes, town hall meetings, and collaborative design sessions to fold public opinion into their designs. However, this work–often called public engagement or participatory design practice–is often criticized for creating the mere impression of community consultation without meaningfully sharing power or enabling systemic change. Instead, this course advocates for a shift in the focus of public engagement to the creation of collective power. To do this, we will learn how to build decision-making tools for community activists to use in advocating for systemic change in the housing system. Our goal will be to reveal a range of alternatives to the housing market–such as investment models, ownership structures, and spatial arrangements–that can build housing with permanent affordability and cultural belonging, especially for BIPOC residents. We will aspire to enable a lively, open, and generative conversation about these options and illuminate a path towards their realization and inhabitation.This course will consist of two main parts. In seminar sessions, we will hold reading discussions and discuss recent architectural projects to conduct a critical review of public engagement. We will also do readings to explore the contemporary housing market landscape in relation to questions of social and racial justice. In workshop sessions, we will work collaboratively (both in small teams within the seminar and with housing justice practitioners in the Bay Area) to create tools that facilitate grassroots, public decision-making. Students might decide, for example, to create interactive models, a game, a social media campaign, site-specific installation, or pop-up event. Along the way, we will also build skills in verbal, written, and graphic communication with a public audience. Together, these experiences will equip students to engage in future architectural design practice that can support community partners in pursuing deep-seated change.

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