
The Racialized Architecture Course is the basis for our workshops on racial oppression and systemic inequity in design fields. This curriculum covers the dynamics in which the architecture practice has willingly participated in the racist actions of colonized space. Our course is made available through the mediums listed below.
This course unpacks racist ideologies and practices found in the architecture profession and re-contextualizes the power structures in place to create equitable environments.
Typically, architects approach a problem via parameters of design needs without including parameters of injustice and oppression – what if we reversed that practice? DCo will walk your company through our design justice process using our 3 C’s [Challenge, Collaborate, Create] to develop an understanding of how to create safe and sacred space.
OVERVIEW: Design professionals and support team members will participate in a workshop that develops their understanding of how existing power structures inhibit the ways marginalized identities experience design. Through dialogue and surveys, participants will collaborate to develop a deeper understanding of the racial prejudice impacting daily architectural and personal decisions. They will also discover methods to create safe spaces to combat this prejudice.
Learning Outcomes:
OVERVIEW: Through the examination of design justice principles, the staff will collaboratively generate interventions that prioritize anti-racism policy in the design process. Through the examination of design justice principles, the staff will collaboratively generate intervention strategies that sustain and prioritize anti-racism policy in the design process. Advocating in the role of an anti-racist, team members will reevaluate the existing structures of current and past projects to understand how they achieve or fail in development of regenerative communities and safe spaces. This workshop, a speculative design task, will create a framework for how the firm engages in evolving outcomes for new radical design processes that are inclusive and seek justice in marginalized communities.
Learning Outcomes:
OVERVIEW: The final workshop of the series will combine the best efforts of leadership and staff to develop key metrics to achieve design justice principles in the practice. In completing the speculative design task, participants will develop the necessary skills to examine what structural qualities within the firm need to change or evolve. This may include the reexamination of how to pursue projects, the identification of key community partners, hiring and retention policies for BIPOC identities, development of regenerative design practices, and the investment in anti-racist initiatives in architecture. By the end of the this workshop the firm will have created a road-map, tracking the progress of how the firm will achieve sustainable change that is rooted in the accountability of leadership.
Learning Outcomes:
This course is the foundation of a three part series called Designing With Action which prepares organizations to build their practices to prioritize justice & liberation in their work.
This recorded video/audio course will equip your organization with the tools and vocabulary necessary to begin dismantling systems of oppression within your practice & work. The course is centered on the concept of Racialized Space and how it manifests itself throughout history in the architectural profession. See the video below for a sample from the course.