Art Activism

What is the antidote to luxury apartments no one will live in? Assemble is a UK-based collective which critically examines the relationship between design, public space and public life.

Urban Strategies

Basurama

Can waste be a resource for urban transformation? Best known for creating colorful playgrounds from common landfill waste, Basurama is a collective of Spanish artists whose projects provide cultural amenities while facilitating wider conversations about waste as a resource.

Urban Strategies

Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP)

2012 Prize Winner

Can design increase civic participation? The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) uses design and art to increase civic engagement. Collaborating with artist /designers, community advocates and policymakers, CUP creates simple, accessible visual explanations for civic issues.

Advocacy
Community Development

City Repair Project

How can public space be reclaimed to forge stronger communities? The City Repair Project addresses America’s lack of outdoor community hubs by supporting neighborhoods in creatively re-purposing public areas such as road intersections into gathering spaces.

Community Development
Environment

Civic City

Can graphic arts be an agent of political change? The team of Vera & Ruedi Baur / Civic City are widely credited with launching a wave of political activism within the fields of graphic design and its allied professions.

Advocacy

CLUSTER Cairo

How do we democratize design? Cairo Lab for Urban Studies, Training and Environmental Research (CLUSTER) engages in critical theorization while being grounded in professional practice; negotiating the blurred boundaries between formal, institutional regulations and urban informality.

Urban Strategies

Collectif Etc.

Is there an alternative to a top down, hierarchical civic design process? Collectif Etc is a French design collective that challenges top down, hierarchical civic design. All stakeholders, from experts to the citizens themselves have a role—and a voice.

Community Development

Coloco

Can a city work as an ecosystem? Coloco believes landscape is an opportunity for collective thought and action. Coloco seeks to create places that can bring communities together and create new ideas among diverse populations.

Community Development
Environment
Urban Strategies

Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency

How can design address colonization and displacement? Palestine based Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency (DAAR) is an architectural studio and residency program that combines spatial interventions, theoretical writings and collective learning to address colonization, conflict and displacement.

Advocacy
Conflict and Disaster

Ecosistema Urbano

Can urban biodiversity be designed? Ecosistema Urbano is a Madrid-based architecture and design firm founded in 2005 by Belinda Tato and Jose Luis Vallejo.

Urban Strategies

Episode 2 | Reimagining the Border, Part II

Should designers be outlaws? Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman of Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman continue their discussion of design & politics at the San Diego/Tijuana border.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Episode 23 | How do we make life into art, and vice versa?

Can we design community engagement? Project Row Houses is a neighborhood based nonprofit art and cultural organization working on grassroots development in Houston’s 3rd ward.

Advocacy
Community Development

Episode 27 | How All Space Becomes Public Space, Pt. I

Can design reclaim public space? EXYZT and Basurama detail new ways to think about public space.

Urban Strategies

Episode 28 | How All Space Becomes Public Space, Pt. II

Can design reclaim public space? EXYZT and Basurama tell us strategies for how to take over public space.

Urban Strategies

Episode 3 | The Street As a Revolution

Should designers be outlaws? Mark Lakeman of the City Repair Project discusses motives and methods for igniting neighborhood change, street by street.

Community Development
Environment

Episode 38 | The Architecture of Stateless Nations, Pt. I

What can design do to promote peace? Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal introduce their work on statelessness and human rights.

Advocacy
Conflict and Disaster

Episode 39 | The Architecture of Stateless Nations, Pt. II

What can design do to promote peace? Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal discuss the details of how they work between the temporary and the permanent.

Advocacy
Conflict and Disaster

Episode 40 | Activating Community Voices

What can design do to promote peace? Isella Ramirez of Hester Street discusses their strategies for making communities be heard.

Advocacy
Community Development
Housing

Episode 41 | Recognizing the Unrecognized

What can design do to promote peace? Malkit Shoshan of the Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory discusses the architecture of conflict.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

Episode 48 | Nurturing Collective Imagination in Rome

Does design create politics or vice versa? Lorenzo Romito of Stalker discusses the ‘territory’ of architecture and how it can be expanded.

Advocacy
Environment
Urban Strategies

Episode 49 | Designing the Politics of the City

Does design create politics or vice versa? Vera and Ruedi Baur of Civic City discuss how graphic design can be a tool of political change.

Advocacy

Episode 5 | Flirting with Illegality

Should designers be outlaws? Santiago Cirugeda - Spain’s 'Guerrilla Architect’ - explains how he challenges urban authority and makes neighborhoods work for everyone.

Advocacy
Community Development

Episode 50 | How to Mobilize a Billion People

Does design create politics or vice versa? Kalle Lasn discusses ‘culture-jamming’ and political resistance.

Advocacy

Episode 51 | Collective Mapping as a Tool for Social Change

Does design create politics or vice versa? Iconoclasistas discusses the practice of collective mapping and how it can be mobilized to achieve social justice.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Episode 53 | Designing After Revolution

How do we democratize design? Omar Nagati and Beth Stryker share their thoughts on CLUSTER Cairo, and the design of urban activism.

Urban Strategies

Episode 62 | Finding Empathy, Making Art

How do we design resistance? Suzanne Lacy talks to us about the role of art in the pursuit of social justice, and how to navigate the lines between art, activism, design and space.

Advocacy

Episode 63 | Design as Protest, Protest by Design, Part I

How do we design resistance? Bryan C. Lee Jr. and Sue Mobley of Colloqate Design join us to discuss how design can support or deconstruct systems of institutional oppression.

Advocacy

Episode 64 | Design as Protest, Protest by Design, Part II

How do we design resistance? Bryan C. Lee Jr. and Sue Mobley of Colloqate Design continue our discussion about design as a tool against oppression.

Advocacy

Episode 66 | Fronts: Security in the Developing World, Pt. I

How do we design resistance? Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller of Agency Architecture reveal their global projects on urbanism and resistance.

Advocacy

Episode 67 | Fronts: Security in the Developing World, Pt. II

How do we design resistance? Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller of Agency Architecture reveal their global projects on urbanism and resistance.

Advocacy

Episode 79 | Inciting Radical Communities Pt.I

How can cities be reimagined by their citizens? Two central figures in public art and community building unveil how they help communities take control of their own futures.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Episode 80 | Inciting Radical Communities Pt.II

How can cities be reimagined by their citizens? Two central figures in public art and community building unveil how they help communities take control of their own futures.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Estudio Teddy Cruz + Forman

How can borders be places of innovation, creativity and exchange? Central to Estudio Teddy Cruz + Forman’s work is the idea that “borders” are not places to be defended, but can promote innovation and exchange.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Fallen Fruit

What if our cities become places that grow natural resources for anyone to share? The art collective Fallen Fruit plants fruit trees in public spaces for everyone to share. They invite citizens to re-imagine public participation, urban space and the meaning of community.

Community Development
Environment

Farm Cultural Park

Can rejuvenation through art transform a forgotten town? Farm Cultural Park is an organically conceived art-driven revitalization of the formerly abandoned center of Favara, Sicily. Visitors explore galleries, shops and cafes. Building exteriors are canvases for artists.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory

Is there a relationship between architecture, planning, politics and human rights? The Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory (FAST) is a think tank founded from a desire to spark a discussion about how political powers use architecture and architects to implement ideological agendas.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

Hester Street Collaborative

How can neighborhoods be shaped by the people who live in them? Hester Street works to ensure neighborhoods are shaped by the people who live in them. They offer planning, design and community development assistance to community-based organizations, government and other agencies.

Advocacy
Community Development
Housing

Iconoclasistas

Can maps promote equality and strategies of resistance? Iconoclasistas is a Buenos Aires-based design duo. Their mission is to use cartography (maps) and other graphic arts to create new visions of historic representation, societal growth and participation.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Interbreeding Field

Can Design Reclaim Public Space? Interbreeding Field is a Taiwanese educational program that creates installations in and about public space. Interbreeding Field’s work makes provocative commentary on how a space should or could be used.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Jeanne van Heeswijk

2012 Prize Winner

Can art mend neighborhoods? Artist Jeanne van Heeswijk’s work centers on the relationship between public space and urban renewal. She embeds herself in communities, working with them to improve neighborhoods and design their futures.

Advocacy
Urban Strategies

Marjetica Potrc

2008 Prize Winner

Can participatory design inspire sustainable prosperity? Marjetica Potrč is an artist and architect who works on community-based projects characterized by participatory design and a concern for sustainability.

Community Development
Environment

Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove di Metropoliz

Can a former salami factory be a home, gallery, film set and a commentary on eviction? Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove di Metropoliz is simultaneously a gallery, film project, home for 200 displaced people and a profound social and political commentary on a common problem: eviction.

Advocacy
Community Development

Project Row Houses

Can artists create solutions instead of just social commentary? Located in Houston’s Northern Third Ward, Project Row Houses believes artists can catalyze social change and that art community are integrally linked– neither is viable without the other.

Advocacy
Community Development
Housing

Public Works

How can neighborhood residents reassert control over their own futures? Public Works is a London-based critical design nonprofit straddling architecture, art, performance and activism. It addresses the challenges of urbanism, seeking ways that communities can reassert control over their futures.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Raumlabor Berlin

If utopia eluded us, what’s next? Raumlabor Berlin practices “research-based design.” Their practice intersects city planning, architecture, art and urban intervention. Central to their work are projects that disrupt a community’s notions about space.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Recetas Urbanas

How can citizens take planning into their own hands? Santiago Cirugeda is the founder and principal of Recetas Urbanas (Urban Recipes), a design & advocacy collective of architects, lawyers and social workers based in Seville, Spain.

Advocacy
Community Development

Stalker

Does design create politics or vice versa? Stalker is a collective of artists, architects, activists and others whose work focuses on the margins of the city.

Advocacy
Environment
Urban Strategies

STEALTH.unlimited

What are the limits of architectural practice? STEALTH.unlimited challenges notions about architectural practice by connecting arts, urban research, cultural activism and interventions. They have a particular focus on ‘common’ spaces shared by both the private and the public.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

studioBASAR

Can design reconcile the legacy of brutal authoritarianism and the new forces of the market? studioBASAR is an architectural office and a “Search and Rescue” team conducting urban observation and intervention. It searches for overlooked urban conditions. Then the ‘rescue’ encompasses architectural interventions.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Studios Kabako

2014 Prize Winner

Can art transform a nation torn apart by conflict and strife? Studios Kabako addresses post-war social memory, fear, and hope. It creates a network for artistic expression at home in the Congolese city of Kisangani and through international commissions.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

Suzanne Lacy

What is the role of art in engaging the public in social justice issues? American artist and activist Suzanne Lacy tackles gender violence, segregation and other social justice issues. Her work evokes discussion and debate and often engages audiences directly, outside of institutional structures.

Advocacy

Theaster Gates