Course Syllabus
COLUMBIA GSAPP A6830 + TUSKEGEE TSACS ARCH 0369 + HAMPTON UNIVERSITY
DIFFERENCE & DESIGN + CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE PRACTICE
412 AVERY HALL + ZOOM LINK HERE
Faculty: Justin G. Moore, AICP, NOMA + Roderick D. Fluker, RA, NCARB, LEED AP + Stanford Britt, FAIA
Tuesdays 3 p.m. - 5 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. - 4 p.m. CT + Individual Sessions by Appointment
Teaching Assistant: Jahanvi Nahata
King’s Palace (reconstruction), Nyzana, Rwanda
“Given the choice between modernity and barbarism, prosperity and poverty, lawfulness and cruelty, democracy and totalitarianism, America chose all of the above.”
- Matthew Desmond in The New York Times for The 1619 Project
OVERVIEW
Four hundred and odd years after colonialism and racial capitalism brought “twenty and odd” enslaved people from Africa to the dispossessed indigenous land that would later become the United States, the structures and systems that generate inequality and white supremacy persist. Our cities and their socioeconomic and built environments continue to exemplify difference. From housing and health to mobility and monuments, cities small and large, urban and rural, north and south demonstrate intractable disparities. The disparate impacts made apparent by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, and ongoing global climate crises are remarkable and demand change. Change is another essential indicator of difference in urban environments, such as disinvestment, disaster, or gentrification. Cities must navigate how considerations like climate change and growing income inequality intersect with politics, culture, gender equality and identity, immigration, migration, and technology, among other conditions and forms of disruption.
Of course, there have been people from diverse backgrounds taking a different approach for how we design our built environments. Here, designing for difference is rooted in identifying broader and shared values, needs, and objectives. Rather than monumentally reinforcing difference, design can be a process and a tool to positively and systematically address difference. A growing field of designers, organizations, and offices have shown that this work can be central or at least integral to architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design practice. This emerging field has been called social design, impact design, design for good, design justice, and other monikers. Some leaders in socially- or environmentally-focused design include Theaster Gates, MASS Design, Latent Design, Hector, ASA Studio, Walter Hood, Francis Kere, Assemble, Department of Places, Sharon Davis, Colloqate, Interboro, Sweetwater Foundation, IDEO, Lesley Lokko, Ekene Ijeoma, Mitch McEwen, Paola Aguirre, Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, Teddy Cruz, Germane Barnes, Toni L. Griffin, Chris Cornelius, June Grant, the Black Reconstruction Collective, and many others.
In Difference and Design + Culturally Responsive Practice, we will explore together some key questions:
- How has the built environment been shaped by difference?
- How do we make a difference in the design of our spaces, places, and cities?
- How do you want to make a difference through your practice as a designer?
The format of the course will include readings, presentations, conversations, and counter-stories in the first half of the semester. The second half of the semester will focus on the development of students’ research and design for place-based or issue-based design projects or on developing independent research papers focused on difference and design in the built environment.
STRUCTURE
Trans-institutional and Online Learning
The course will operate as a hybrid in-person and virtual Zoom trans-institutional collaboration between Columbia University GSAPP in New York City and Tuskegee University’s Robert R. Taylor School of Architecture and Construction Science in Alabama and is affiliated with Dark Matter University. This partnership allows for interaction among students from different backgrounds and fields of study in order to share a learning environment and bring diverse experiences and perspectives to our work. Tuesdays, 3 p.m. - 5 p.m. ET, will be the regular class time for all students and will contain our lectures, discussions, and presentations. Tuskegee students will also meet for a workshop session on August 29th with a focus on culturally responsive design, including developing related individual counter-story projects. Asynchronous semester calendars mean that students will develop work on different schedules throughout the semester. Students may work individually or in groups of two and across schools. Working in groups is preferred, but note that it will require arranging regular meeting times outside of the scheduled class time to collaborate, as well as coordinating different semester schedules. At the end of the semester, work from the course will be compiled for online publication and exhibition.
READINGS, MEDIA, & DISCUSSION
Short readings and media (videos, audio, etc.) will be assigned throughout the semester; students should be prepared to participate in discussions about the content and have comments and questions prepared in advance. Students are also encouraged to follow current online media (NextCity, FastCo Design, Scalawag, CityLab, etc.) to fold into our weekly discussions. Class participation and discussion constitute 30% of the final grade evaluation, and students should take full advantage of the opportunity to have dialogue and exchange across both of our universities.
SOCIAL AND ONLINE MEDIA
Students are encouraged to find and share their work, ideas, and thoughts on social media such as Instagram and Twitter, and engage and follow various people, organizations, and media with content relevant to the course. Justin can be found at @j.g.moore on Instagram and @jgmoore on Twitter.
SCHEDULE
D = Discussion where materials are presented and discussed as a class (like a lecture/seminar)
W= Working session where students meet and share work with the professor (like a studio desk crit)
TUSKEGEE ONLY: ZOOM LINK HERE
August 22: Tuskegee Culturally Responsive Practice Introduction (Virtual)
D: Course Introduction
August 29: Tuskegee Culturally Responsive Practice Workshop (Virtual)
D: Lecture and discussion of readings
COLUMBIA + TUSKEGEE + HAMPTON: HYBRID 412 AVERY + ZOOM LINK HERE
September 5: Difference and Design Introduction (Hybrid)
D: Student introductions, course introduction, and review counter-story assignment and readings
September 8: Email Counter-story Choices
Students are to email their group and counter-story selections for feedback to jgm35@columbia.edu by 6 p.m. ET Friday, September 8th.
September 12: Lecture/Readings Discussion (Virtual)
D: Lecture and discussion of readings
Rothstein, Richard. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. New York: Liveright Publishing Company, 2017. See also: segregatedbydesign.com.
Fullilove, Mindy. Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, And What We Can Do About It. New Village Press, 2016.
September 19: Counter-story Development (Hybrid)
W: Discuss counter-story assignment and individual research
September 26: Discussion and Counter-story Development (Hybrid)
D: Discussion of readings and media
Forensic Architecture, Environmental Racism in Death Alley. Goldsmiths, University of London 2021.
W: Discuss counter-story assignment and individual research
Wednesday, September 27: Justin at Tuskegee
W: Available by appointment to meet in person with Tuskegee students during Alabama site visit
OCTOBER 3: Counter-story Development (Virtual, alternate time schedule this week)
W: Discuss counter-story assignment (context: people and place) and individual research
October 10: Counter-story Development (Virtual)
W: Discuss individual counter-story assignments (content: subject and narrative) and individual research
October 17: Counter-story Presentations (Hybrid)
D: students present their counter-stories
Submit to Google Drive and Miro and contact the TA, TBD, when submitting your presentation materials. Send your final counter-stories for grading to Google Drive by October 27th.
October 24: Project Ideas Development (Virtual)
W: Discuss individual counter-story assignments (content: subject and narrative) and individual research
October 31: Project Ideas Presentations (Hybrid)
D: Instead of a midterm, we will review together in a fast and casual format your ideas for making a difference through design (and share your final research and/or design project idea). You can continue building on your counter-story topic, develop a new project idea, or do a project or research related to your other work or courses. The presentation format is to use five 11”x17” (landscape) slides maximum and five minutes maximum to present. E.g., are you interested in a research or conceptual project or a site- or program-based project? What issues or contexts do you want to focus on—economic opportunity, environmental justice, housing, gender equity, cultural values, climate adaptation, universal mobility and access, etc.?
November 7: Lecture and Project Development (Virtual)
D: Lecture by Stanford Britt and discussion TBC
W: Individual project discussion
November 14: Lecture and Project Development (Hybrid)
D: Lecture and discussion TBC
W: Individual project discussion
November 21: Project Development (Virtual)
W: Individual project discussion (review draft final project materials and text)
Week of November 27th: Tuskegee Presentations Date/Time TBD
D: Tuskegee Final Project Review
Tuskegee students submit their final documents to Google Drive by 6 p.m. 12/1/2023 for grading and compilation.
W: Individual project discussion by sign-up (to be scheduled on Tuesday, 11/28 or Wednesday, 11/29)
December 5: NO CLASS - COLUMBIA STUDIO FINAL REVIEWS
Week of December 11th: Final Presentations (All Students’ Presentations) Date/Time TBD
D: Final Project Review | Upload your final documents to Google Drive by 6 p.m. 12/15/2023 for grading and compilation.
EVALUATION & DELIVERABLES
10% Individual Attendance
30% Class Participation and Discussion of Readings and Shared Media
30% Counter-story (urban or design projects, programs, or practices)
- 11x17 Digital Triptych Poster (template provided)
- 8-14-page designed 8.5x11 pamphlet presentation (will translate to 4-7 11x17 slides) including images, drawings, ~500-750-word text w/ attribution of sources and images
- ~5-minute presentation using your poster and pamphlet (miro board)
- 1-minute video post for social media
30% Final Research/Design Project or Research Paper
- Option 1: Design project with significantly developed original graphic and design work
- 11x17 Digital Triptych Poster (template provided)
- 10-16-page designed 8.5x11 pamphlet presentation (will translate to 5-8 11x17 slides) including: images, drawings, ~750-1,000-word text w/ attribution of sources and images
- ~8-minute presentation of your project with images (miro board)
- 1-minute video post for social media
- Option 2: Research paper with primary source research
- 11x17 Digital Triptych Poster (template provided)
- 10-15-page paper with images, ~2,000-word text w/ attribution of sources and images
- ~8-minute presentation of your research with images (miro board)
- 1-minute video post for social media
Columbia GSAPP grading and academic standing policies are here: https://www.arch.columbia.edu/grades and https://www.arch.columbia.edu/satisfactory-academic-progress.
READING LIST*
Bullard, Robert D. “Environmental Justice for All” in edited by Robert D. Bullard, Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of Color (San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books, 1994), pp. 3-22.
Caldeira, Teresa. Chapter 6 (“São Paulo: Three Patterns of Spatial Segregation”) from City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in Sao Paulo 2000.
Cheng, Irene, Charles L. Davis II and Mable O. Wilson, ed. Race and Modern Architecture: A Critical History from the Enlightenment to the Present. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020.
Coates, Ta-Nehisi, “The Case for Reparations." The Atlantic 313, no. 5 (2014): 54-71.
Harney, Stefano and Fred Moten, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study (New York: Minor Compositions, 2013).
Harris, Dianne. Little White Houses: How the Postwar Home Constructed Race in America. University Of Minnesota Press, 2013.
Harvey, David “The Right to the City,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 27, no. 4 (2003): 939-941.
Fullilove, Mindy. Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, And What We Can Do About It. New Village Press, 2016.
Martin, Reinhold. “Abolish Oil,” Places Journal, June 2020. Accessed 01 Aug 2020. https://placesjournal.org/article/abolish-oil/
Mitchell, Melvin. The Crisis of the African-American Architect: Conflicting Cultures of Architecture and Black Power. New York: Writers Advantage, 2003.
Rothstein, Richard. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. New York: Liveright Publishing Company, 2017.
See also: https://www.segregatedbydesign.com/
Sutton, Sharon Egretta. When Ivory Towers Were Black: A Story About Race in America’s Cities and Universities. New York: Fordham University Press, 2017.
OTHER ONLINE REFERENCES*
https://darkmatteruniversity.org/Reference
https://www.architecturetuwhite.org/resourceguides
https://www.curbed.com/2020/7/16/21315678/city-racism-urbanism-atlanta-beltline
https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/
Previous Difference and Design Case Studies and Projects
Previous Yale Urban Difference and Change Case Studies and Projects
Soul City Online References:
https://scalawagmagazine.org/2021/07/soul-city/
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/soul-city/
* Reading List and Online References in Development
PLAGIARISM
In general, you should always cite your sources (including images) in all final presentation materials and papers. You are encouraged to keep a running list of sources so that you don’t have to go back and find your original source materials right before a presentation deadline or at the end of the semester.
GSAPP Plagiarism Policy: https://www.arch.columbia.edu/plagiarism-policy
GSAPP Honor System: https://www.arch.columbia.edu/honor-system
LEARNING ENVIRONMENT, ACCOMMODATIONS, AND SUPPORT
All participants are expected to show respect and tolerance of others, in all matters and at all times. If you feel uncomfortable with any aspect of the learning environment, let's talk about it or, if you prefer, make an appointment with the Dean of Students at your institution. If you are feeling stressed, help is available: make an appointment to talk with a mental health professional through the counseling services available at your institution. Students seeking reasonable accommodations or support services are required to register with their institution’s disability office.
CONTACTS
Faculty
Justin G. Moore, jgm35@columbia.edu
Roderick Fluker, rfluker@tuskegee.edu
Carmina Sanchez, CARMINA.SANCHEZ@hamptonu.edu
Stanford Britt, STANFORD.BRITT@hamptonu.edu
Teaching Assistant
Jahanvi Nahata, jn2891@columbia.edu
DIFFERENCE & DESIGN COUNTER-STORY ASSIGNMENT
“What does a traffic jam in Atlanta have to do with segregation?
Quite a lot.” Photo credit: Humza Deas for the New York Times
PROMPT
Working individually or in a group of two, you will research, document, and present to the class a “counter-story” related to the impact of difference in urban design and the built environment. This can focus on urban or environmental policies and practices, or on a specific design project or program. The counter-stories can be of projects or documented narratives that have had clear negative or positive impacts relative to social, economic, or environmental conditions. Selected counter-stories must have adequate documentation and the primary source references needed to develop the required deliverables. See: https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/guides/
DEADLINES
- Students are to email their counter-story selections for feedback to jgm35@columbia.edu by 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday, September 8th
- Friday, October 17th: Counter-story presentations (the TA will collect materials before class)
- Friday, October 27th: Counter-story archive materials (poster + pamphlet with text with any requested edits from presentations) are due for grading in Google Drive by 6 p.m.
DELIVERABLES
- 11x17 Digital Triptych Poster (template provided)
- 6-12-page designed 8.5x11 pamphlet presentation (will translate to 3-6 11x17 slides) including images, drawings, 500-750-word text w/ attribution of sources and images
- 5-minute presentation using your poster and pamphlet (miro board)
- 1-minute video post for social media (can be personal, others’, or composite stories)
REFERENCES
Social design references: Design As Protest Resources, Social Design Insights Podcast
New York Times 1619 Project What does a traffic jam in Atlanta have to do with segregation? Quite a lot.
FastCo Design How Urban Design Perpetuates Racial Inequality–And What We Can Do About It
Blueprint Good public design needs to reflect the population it serves
Course Summary:
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