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Debates on spatial justice tend to polarize between bottom-up processes and top-down planning. Policymakers are called to address the urgent issues of social and environmental injustice. Yet they struggle to grasp the complexity of the landscapes they regulate, and fail to incorporate local intelligence in the process. In response, various attempts at so-called tactical urbanism seek to mobilize citizen action and create space for civic appropriation, but remain limited in their ability to generate structural and scalable change.
 
How can design bridge this institutional and cognitive divide? How can it serve as a critical conduit for civic intelligence, turning most urgent needs and desires into action? ACT! brings together three case studies of urban changemaking that integrates local community perspectives and urban policy in the design practice. Shifting focus from plans and objects to people, process, and action, ACT! will analyze how design can mobilize for change and social justice by bringing different agents and institutions together. 
 
  • What opportunities does a hybrid practice present to the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design, among others?
  • How does the notion of urban narratives reframe the notion of urban planning?
  • How can an action pedagogy allow design research to break new ground?
 
Join us for this three-part event to discover, debate, and design the vital links between urban narratives and design as action. Together we will articulate a path forward, towards a contemporary, socially conscious design education.
 
Organizing committee:
 
Pedro Aparicio | MDes ULE '16, GSD
Neha Bhatt | Loeb Fellow 2015–16
Ignacio Cardona |DDes '20, GSD
Alejandro Echeverri | Loeb Fellow 2015-16
Rodrigo Guerra | MAUD '17, GSD
Namik Mackic | MDes RR '16, GSD
Ruben Segovia | MArch II
Olga Semenovych | MDes ULE '16, GSD
ACT!
Harvard GSD |Gund Hall
 
Saturday, April 16
Piper Auditorium
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Keynotes: Three Cities
9:30 am â€“ 1:00 pm

 

Workshop: Hybrid Practice

2:00 pm – 6:00 pm 

 

 Monday, April 18

 Stubbins (Room 112) 
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Symposium: Action Pedagogy

2:00 pm – 8:00 pm

 

 

 

 

Harvard University 

Graduate School of Design

Gund Hall

48 Quincy St. 

Cambridge, MA 02138

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