ARCHIVE
The home of all archived BAD.d newsletters.
The archive is updated at the end of each calendar year. Check back in January 2026 to read all of 2025’s letters.
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 incorporate 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.
Check back in 2026 for the full letter.
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, lmperator 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 fathers 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 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.”
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mar.
COMING SOON
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apr.
COMING SOON
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may.
COMING SOON
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jun.
COMING SOON
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jul.
COMING SOON
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aug.
COMING SOON
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sep.
COMING SOON
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oct.
COMING SOON
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nov.
COMING SOON
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dec.
COMING SOON
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