Image: Adam Bissell + Rizwana Lubis

REFRAMING PROPERTY

Curriculum: Advanced Architecture Studio, California College of the Arts, Architecture Division
Date: Fall 2021
Professor: Janette Kim
Students: Ahmad. Alajmi, Adam Bissell, Skyler Ruobing Cheng, Jaimee Elliot, Carlos Garcia, Jason Gonzalez, Aditya Kosman, Nicole Kuo, Savannah Lindsey, Yue Liu, Rizwana Lubis, and Ashley Rodriguez

This studio challenges the common understanding of property as a commodity for generating profit and a haven for self-interest. Instead, we will explore property as a legal and spatial tool for fostering a regenerative economy. Our goal is to leverage our skills as architects to reframe the boundaries, temporality, and cultural expression of land ownership.

The subdivision of land as property has structured racial and social justice—and injustice—by shaping the way wealth is distributed. The Jeffersonian grid, for example, accelerated the seizure of Indigenous land and lives by colonial settlement in the American West. The single-family home has banked on discriminatory loan policies and zoning laws written in the name of protecting property values. These and many other exclusive systems still endure, especially preventing Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color from generating wealth. There is a flip side to property, however. Many of its underlying logics—the commons, liability, maintenance, belonging, and yes, even profit—can be altered towards more inclusive ends. Community Land Trusts, for example, take land off the speculative market and enable their residents to manage land collectively. In another example, Usufruct Rights reserve Native American tribes’ ability to access resources on land that was ceded to the US government centuries ago.

In other words, property can redistribute wealth, not just hoard it. It can proliferate resources, not just extract them. Property can play a crucial role in shaping jobs, justice and decarbonization—goals framed by climate justice and Green New Deal activists. Such approaches seek to replace an extractive economy based on the “depletion and degradation of natural resources, the exploitation of human labor,... and the accumulation of wealth by interests outside the community,” with a regenerative economy “based on reflective, responsive, reciprocal relationships of interdependence between human communities and the living world upon which we depend.”

Doing so requires an entirely different spatial condition. Traditionally, private property has defined a one-to-one correspondence between parcel boundaries and a landowner’s rights and responsibilities. In fact, however, these alignments are never so clean. Stormwater might flow from my garden into your basement. A church might sell its air rights to a condo developer next door. A “town fridge” on the sidewalk might distribute prepared meals to neighbors in need. In this studio, we will crack these fissures open, to embrace unexpected alignments and misalignments across architectural elements such as hard-scape, soft-scape, foliage, foundations, walls, roofs, furniture, and fixtures.

Projects + Videos:

  • Rescape, Adam Bissell & Rizwana Lubis (video) This project envisions land restoration and reparation strategies for the Oakland-Piedmont area, to unify the environment and community.

  • Reciprocal Neighborhood, Aditya Kosman & Skyler Cheng (video) Our goal is to create a reciprocal relationship between retired seniors and the cannabis operation to achieve a regenerative neighborhood in west Oakland.

  • Fragmented Ownership, Yue Liu & Charlie Garcia (video) With the rising cost of property, and monopoly of retail/agriculture, how can the fragmentation of existing land ownership help the community of Oakland regenerate their own economy?

  • Piedmont Supportive Housing, Ahmad Alajmi & Savannah Lindsey (video) Our project imagines a supportive housing community in what is now an exclusive, single-family home enclave of Piedmont, California. We introduced a system of retaining walls in the sloped site of Blair Park to carve out spaces for community support spaces activated by “fixtures,” such as lighting connections, shower heads, performance spaces, and community kitchens.

  • Embracing Lines of Stability, Ashley Giselle Rodriguez (video) Migrants and minorities seek asylum,employment, and economic opportunities as they struggle to find a permanent home. How can we provide stability to those who fail to convert within a new country?

  • Staking Title in Equitable Property, Jaimee Elliott (video) This project creates opportunities for West Oakland community members to fight against displacement and gentrification by taking ownership of land

  • Connecting with Gradient, Jason Gonzalez and Nicole Kuo (video) Connecting with Gradient envisions a true sharing economy hub that creates a commons to support worker’s cooperatives and energy generation.