With questions such as Where do roads come from?, popular educators in the US Black Freedom Movement like Septima Clark have long used discussions about architecture and the built environment to unpack ideas of citizenship, politics and power. People’s observations and analyses of built form offer insights into the surroundings we share and opportunities for collective action to change it. In this lecture, Jae Shin and Damon Rich of HECTOR urban design will share stories from their attempts to learn from this tradition of popular education as a resource for architecture, urban design and planning. 

Based in Newark, HECTOR practices urban design, planning and civic arts. Informed by traditions of visionary architecture, popular education and community organizing, it works on landscapes, buildings, development plans and regulations with complex constituencies and competing priorities. Founded by Jae Shin and Damon Rich based on their experiences working as designers within municipal bureaucracies, HECTOR’s recent projects include a South Philadelphia neighbourhood park, a youth-centric development plan for a district of 37,000 people on Detroit’s west side, and a memorial for ecofeminist Sister Carol Johnston. The MacArthur Foundation has described HECTOR’s designs as “vivid and witty strategies to help residents exercise power within the public and private processes that shape our cities.”