Reclaiming Land: Opening up Homeownership
Mon Sep 22, 6:30-8:00pm
@ Center for Architecture + Design (CA+D)

Join us to explore how architects can shape inventive models of property ownership to make housing more equitable, inclusive, and vibrant. California College of the Arts professor Janette Kim will share work from her forthcoming book, Property Playbook, which shows how community-based activists across the US are co-opting property law to redistribute wealth, sustain cultural continuity, and foster environmental reciprocity. Alice Armstrong and Ashton Hamm of the worker-owned firm uxo architects will share their designs with community land trusts, cooperative housing, and clients with an interest in alternative models of development that create community benefit. If you’ve ever wondered how architects can more deeply engage the systems, forces, and cultural life of housing justice, you won’t want to miss this lively conversation. 

This program is hosted by the Center for Architecture + Design and the California College of the Arts Architecture Division as part of the Architecture + the City Festival. This is fourth in a series of events on property ownership organized by the Urban Works Agency at CCA.

Speakers:

Alice Armstrong is a worker-owner at uxo architects. She previously worked as a project manager on public education and affordable housing projects in the Bay Area. Her background in urban studies and cooperative housing continues to shape her architectural practice - which encompasses traditional building projects, strategic planning, and community engagement.

Ashton Hamm is a licensed architect and a worker-owner at uxo architects—California’s first architectural cooperative founded in 2016. Ashton is an activist and an advocate for the cooperative movement, recently completing a fellowship with the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives. With uxo architects, Ashton works on projects that range from single family remodels to renovations of community-based organizations to affordable multifamily housing for tribal led community land trusts. Ashton received their B. Arch from Virginia Tech.

Janette Kim is associate professor at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, where she co-directs the Urban Works Agency research lab. She is also founding principal of design practice All of the Above. Janette works in partnership with community-based organizations and municipal agencies to realize a more equitable redistribution of land and resources. Kim is currently writing a book called Property Playbook, which illustrates how activists and architects can co-opt legal and financial tools of property ownership to lay the foundation for a just and ecologically vibrant built environment.