ARCHIVE
The home of all archived BAD.d newsletters.
The archive is updated at the end of each calendar year.
jan.
Why Architecture
Needs Intersectionality
John Hope Franklin in his essay The Dilemma of the American Negro Scholar (1963), describes an uncomfortable experience when visiting the North Carolina State Department of Archives and History. He wrote that his arrival at the facility created a state of panic and emergency for the administration because he was a Negro scholar. The archivist informed him that, “...he was the first Negro who had sought to use the facilities there; and as the architect who designed the building had not anticipated such a situation, [his] use of the manuscripts and other materials would have to be postponed for several days, during which time one of the exhibition rooms would be converted into a reading room.”.
An architect of today might blame this occurrence on segregationalist policy; however, this issue is much greater in that a design problem came about based on race, yet to this day, architectural design has not made an effort to design in Black, but rather incorporates Black into white space - colonial white space.
My goal in circulating this work is to draw your attention to the necessity of intersectional thought in architecture and design.
feb.
Sincerely, Your Architect -The Politician
Foundational education for architects often begins with 1st-century Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius and his Ten Books on Architecture - a proposal to Augustus Caesar for his design method to be standardized throughout the empire. The architect speaks colourfully in his letter, as so;
“While your divine intelligence and will, Imperator Caesar, were engaged in acquiring the right to command the world, and while your fellow citizens, when all their enemies had been laid low by your invincible valor, were glorying in your triumph and victory …I thought that I ought to take the first opportunity to lay before you my writings on this theme. For in the first place, it was this subject which made me known to your father, to whom I was devoted on account of his great qualities. After the council of heaven gave him a place in the dwellings of immortal life and transferred your father's power to your hands, my devotion continuing unchanged as I remembered him inclined me to support you… because I saw that you have built and are now building extensively, and that in the future also you will take care that our public and private buildings shall be worthy to god to posterity by the side of your other splendid achievements.”
mar.
Women’s History Profile: Elizabeth Carter Brooks
March is Women’s History Month and unfortunately, I still find myself having to perform a Google search to find the list of “Black women architects” in the order of diligent practice to ensure that none of their names are forgotten; to do the work in training an algorithm somewhere out there for these names to be search engine optimised – to make sure that the world wide web can feed me a list of only 10 names of historically recognized Black women in architecture:
1. Norma Merrick Sklarek
2. Beverly Lorraine Greene
3. Kimberly Dowdell
4. Pascale Sablan
5. Tiara Hughes
6. Elizabeth Carter Brooks
7. Roberta Washington
8. Alberta Jeanette Cassell
9. Mariam Issoufou Kamara
10. Amaza Lee Meredith
apr.
Off-Grid :
A Revolution for
Spatial Independence
In order to emancipate oneself from a colonial mindset of spatial thinking, one must first be emancipated from and/or enact a revolution against the idea of the grid.
According to Merriam-Webster, a grid is a network of uniformly spaced horizontal and perpendicular lines; something resembling a network. Networks can be coded and uncoded, possessing the ability to conceal and reveal by design. The framework of every strong network is incredibly intentional and meticulously designed to ensure that the network does not break.
The Jeffersonian grid that has been so ingrained in the authorship of American spatial design is a single authoritarian act of violence that seems to have perpetuated itself for centuries. This racially driven method of organizing space has become so ingrained in our societal understanding of what and who should be seen and not seen in space. Jefferson‘s grid perpetuates a violent system and has been replicated time and time again without critical thought on the impact that this spatial layout has on those who move within it.
may.
Flânoir
The noun, Flâneur, of French origin, is described in the Oxford English Dictionary as: “A lounger or saunterer; an idle ‘man about town’”. Within the urban sphere, he is a wanderer of the city streets and seer of urban affairs; he is a man of the commons and a 19th-century archetype of metropolitan modernity. Flâneurie (the act of flâneur-ing) is so often associated with high regard or with nostalgic reverence. A recent New York Times Article, “The Art of Being a Flâneur”, describes the life of a flaneur with romanticism, using adjectives like ‘dream’, ‘sensuous’, ‘drift’, and ‘wonder’.
It is needless to say that the warm nostalgia of the flâneur is a product of the White Spatial Imaginary. A flâneur, marvel of the metropolis, meanwhile, the Black counterpart of such a character becomes an object for sociological studies in classics such as Tally’s Corner: A Study of Negro Streetcorner Men.
Is there any event where the flâneur is represented en noir?
jun.
A Blank Text,
An Empty Letter
In an effort to build healthy practices and exercise REST, there is no newsletter for this month.
jul.
Making Space
in the Margin
This is an honest letter and a step back from professional formalism. After all, it is summertime and it is HOT here in NY and the people are TIRED. Waymaking is hard. Path making is hard. Foundation building is hard. Just getting through the day, sometimes, is just HARD. And we too often neglect conversations on all of the mental, emotional, and physical labor that goes into making space from within a margin.
Being a Black woman in architecture and design has put me in a marginalized condition. Being of any minority group in design and architecture puts you in a marginal condition. There is a weight that comes with that position. Oftentimes, that weight can make you feel a bit guilty when you just want to lie down, take a break, and REST.
This letter is about allowing yourself that space and time to rest, and what we can learn from prioritizing pause. It may even credit responsible pause with the ability for you to come back stronger and better!
aug.
Will / Impose / Control
My first letter expressed my position of belief: architecture is political and that the absence of intersectional thought in architectural practice and theory leaves architecture, as object and discipline, in a state of inequity and discrimination. “Every design has a direct effect on the lives of the people over which it assumes sovereignty.”
This letter is a recall to the responsibility held by architects and designers. The ability to will an idea into physical form and to impose it into space can result in the benefit or detriment of our social world.
The things that we impose physically will outlive us, and most likely will last for generations to come. The mind that you used to construct your ideas is less durable than the material put forward to actualize your idea as a palpable object, space, or environment.
This is a provocation for you to question the built environment and to challenge what has been designed for the benefit of inequity, in favor of spatial oppression.
sep.
In the Beginning...
The story of the architect, whose name is derived from the Greek compound word arkhitekton (“arkhi” - meaning “chief”, “principal”, or “master” and “tekton” - meaning “builder”, “carpenter”, or “craftsman”), is one of divine creation. Many ancient traditions and religions alike have described the creator of the universe as an architect or master builder, establishing a symbolic link between the creative power of God and the creative power of the architect.
This letter describes the story of an architect and a discontented project manager. The architect creates a form and ascribes a function to that form. The form becomes a man, and the man becomes a city, and the city functions as designed until there is greed.
This letter describes the story of a nation at war – a country divided – where community is disrupted and the people fight to the death for sovereignty. There is an error of thought, a lie told; an uprising at play. There is death. There is war until death. There is perpetual death and destruction, and deception, so that there is no peace. And no one chooses peace.
oct.
COMING SOON
Overview coming soon...
nov.
COMING SOON
Overview coming soon...
dec.
COMING SOON
Overview coming soon...