Teaching and Research ARCHIVE — studiosideproject

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 9 structures built through a participatory and hands-on process throughout San Francisco. All of these were built in partnership with neighbors, kids and local nonprofits.

These include:

mobile bed units for a homeless shelter sharing an elementary school gym
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
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.

Process and Drawings

B.lab Portfolio

Stay Over Program - Long Form from Academy of Art University on Vimeo.

Unity Pavilion Process and Construction

Point Perch Process and Construction

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