Programs
Through local and international public programs and convenings, the Architecture and Housing Justice Lab brings together architects, scholars, community leaders, government officials, and people with lived experience, forging connections between housing justice and architecture.
Architecture and the Right to Housing:
Pan-American Program Series
Upcoming: New York, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, São Paulo
Past: Mexico City, Toronto
Sponsors: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada, Irving Grossman Fund in Affordable Housing
This Pan-American series will convene architecture-and-the-right-to-housing workshops and keynote lectures in Buenos Aires, São Paulo, New York, and Los Angeles. In each location, we will work with local partners to gather a dozen architects, housing advocates, academics, and people with lived experience to debate questions of housing justice and the role of architecture. The programs will mobilize Canadian research abroad, will surface urgent questions and promising local examples, and seed further collaboration. After producing "Architecture and the Right to Housing in Toronto," a March 2024 public lecture and private roundtable, and a summer 2023 pilot program in Mexico City, "Architecture and Housing Justice in Mexico," we know how to produce these convenings efficiently and effectively.
The proceedings of the four upcoming workshops will be published in Untapped Journal, an open-access architecture platform. We will also present accessible and image-forward summaries of each program on a new online platform, the Daniels Housing Justice Lab. The 48 participants across the four sites will emerge with increased interdisciplinary knowledge and collaborator connections. Following the site-specific exchanges, we will convene representatives from the four cities above, plus Toronto and Mexico City, in a virtual workshop to share best practices.
New York
Parsons The New School Housing Justice Lab
Upcoming
Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles cityLAB
Upcoming
Buenos Aires
Centro de Estudios Urbanos y Regionales
Upcoming
São Paulo
Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de São Paulo
Upcoming
Public Lecture:
Architecture and the Right to Housing
Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto, March 2024
Sponsor: Irving Grossman Fund in Affordable Housing
This panel discussion, moderated by the Daniels Faculty’s Karen Kubey, explored how the right to housing—both in Canada and globally—isn’t just a political, legal and economic issue, but also an architectural one.
What does the right to housing mean in practice? And how can designers contribute? Kubey was joined by architect Paul Karakusevic and lawyer and advocate Leilani Farha to discuss these urgent questions and examine promising housing models, laying the groundwork for ways forward.
About the panelists: A human rights lawyer and former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing, Leilani Farha is Global Director of The Shift, an international advocacy agency combating housing financialization while upholding human rights. Paul Karakusevic is a founding partner at Karakusevic Carson, an award-winning architecture firm at the forefront of public housing design across the UK.
Roundtable:
Architecture and Housing Justice in Mexico
Proyector, Mexico City
June 2023
Sponsor: U of T School of Cities Small Grants Initiative
Architecture and Housing Justice in Mexico was hosted by Proyector in Mexico City, in collaboration with the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design and the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. The event brought together local architects and housing advocates, as well as North American academics. This intimate gathering raised urgent questions and showcased promising examples, laying the groundwork for future collaboration.
By convening authors of recent publications highlighting aspects of housing struggles in Mexico alongside local actors, the event provided an opportunity for a comprehensive exploration of current trends and potential pathways forward.
The program, held in person, addressed issues such as climate change, belonging, and inequality in the context of housing justice. Short talks connecting research and practice led into a facilitated discussion over a shared meal. The proceedings, conducted primarily in English with some Spanish, were recorded and transcribed for future publication.
Roundtable:
Architecture and the Right to Housing in Toronto
Daniels Faculty, University of Toronto,
March 2024
Sponsor: Irving Grossman Fund in Affordable Housing
Architecture and The Right to Housing in Toronto was hosted by the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. The right to housing—both globally and in Canada—presents political, legal, and economic challenges. It is also an architectural issue. What does the right to housing mean in practice, and how can designers contribute?
Bringing together housing advocates, architects, and academics, this intimate gathering was modeled after our pilot program, Architecture and Housing Justice in Mexico. Short talks connecting research and practice were followed by a facilitated discussion over a shared meal. The proceedings were recorded and transcribed for future publication in Untapped Journal.
The goal was to work collaboratively to envision what the right to housing could look like in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and explore how architects might contribute. The convening raised urgent questions, highlighted promising examples, and laid the groundwork for future collaboration.
At the core of this program and the larger series are the seven aspects of the right to housing as outlined by the United Nations: security of tenure, availability of services, affordability, accessibility, habitability, cultural adequacy, and location. The program emphasized that these are not only political and economic issues but also architectural ones, particularly the latter five.
