Practicing Spatial Justice: Design-Organizing for Abolition

Item

Title
Practicing Spatial Justice: Design-Organizing for Abolition
Description
This project presents a critique of the profession of landscape architecture, extending the liability of a licensed professional to include accountability for slow, systemic violence, in addition to individual health, safety, and public welfare. The project is developed on the site of “Cop City,” a “public training facility” designed to uphold the police state in greater Atlanta, Georgia. The project documents racial and environmental harm on the site through a critique of the legal tools of the profession. It proposes a new kind of abolitionist practitioner, the designer-organizer, who works to build local power and repair relationships between plant and human communities. This requires new practices of codesign, featuring fuzzy future models that embed skills of organizing and designing into decision-making processes. Mutual liability is held between the community and designer-organizers to promote true public welfare in this abolitionist landscape.
Creator
Chien, Sophie Weston
Subject
Abolition
Atlanta
Cop City
Design Justice
Professional Practice
Urban Forestry
Environmental justice
Forestry
Landscape architecture
Contributor
Choi, Danielle
Date
2024-05-21T12:04:26Z
2024
2024-05-15
2024
2024-05-21T12:04:26Z
Type
Thesis or Dissertation
text
Format
application/pdf
application/pdf
Identifier
Chien, Sophie Weston. 2024. Practicing Spatial Justice: Design-Organizing for Abolition. Master's thesis, Harvard Graduate School of Design.
31298593
https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37378613
0009-0003-8677-8277
Language
en