studio sideproject
We are a full service, POC/women owned architecture and design practice located in Oakland, California.As practicioners who teach, we founded the B.lab program at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco within the undergratuate architecture program. The B.lab is a design build program promoting spatial justice for local communities and advocacy for future designers. Through radical listening and co-creation, we empower and hope to bring postive change to the built environment.
B.Lab Community Based Design Projects
Our work founding and running the B.lab program has resulted in 8 structures built through a participatory and hands-on process in the Bayview nieghborhood of SF. All of these were built in partnership with neighbors, kids and local nonprofits.
These include:
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mobile bed units for a homeless shelter sharing an elementary school gym
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a gathering space for a women’s empowerment group
- a mobile cart that serves coffee to and spurs conversations with unhoused folks
- flexible pods created to bring joy, distribute produce and reduce stigma at a food pantry
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a pavilion for growing, cooking and storytelling in a community garden
- a set of interlocking modules coded witha ground mural to provide an intergenerational space for play and exploration in the courtyard of an affordable housing project.
Stay Over Program - Long Form from Academy of Art University on Vimeo.
Kid of Parts Process
Awards:
- SFHDC Everyday Heroes Nominee 2021
- San Francisco Challenge Grant Awardee 2019
- SF Design Week Student Innovation 2018
- AIASF Community Alliance Award 2015
International Workshops
We love to build agency by teaching and engaging with youth and the next generation and workshops and community outreach are a critical component of our practice. While not possible with every project, we look for ways to integrate them into the design process. Our past workshops have focused on high school aged youth, with an emphasis on climate justice related issues. In Bosnia and India, we used design as a tool to start conversations and promote agency among local youth. Over the course of a few days, using recycled materials, local high school students designed and built small “parklets” that contained air quality monitors to draw attention to the poor air quality in their towns.
Bangalore Parikrma School Design Workshop
Bosnia Clean Air Design Build Workshop
CardinalBotics Workshops
