They begin their process by connecting with neighborhood groups interested in development. Sites chosen for intervention are often oddly-shaped or on hillsides; areas that are neglected by conventional development schemes. Through their community-based process, PICO challenges assumptions about what can be done with territory, and what can be transformed through existing community assets.

Their practice is also heavily focused on the creative use of reclaimed materials from a variety of industries; critically examining how extraordinary spaces can be created with the ordinary.

Active members of PICO include Karina Domínguez, José Bastidas, Ana Karina Vielma, Adriano Pastorino, Bárbara Saman, Emanuel Bueno, María Isabel Ramírez, Manuel Coronel and Stevenson Piña.

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Ctrl+Z’s approach is based on a philosophy of engagement – that form and material arise out of the method of interaction one chooses.

Where possible, Ctrl+Z has explored alternative markets as a means to actualize projects, including collective work, self-building, mutual aid and barter systems.

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Every spring for ten days, the City Repair Project organizes the Village Building Convergence, which draws residents and activists together to design and build their own community amenities. They provide hands-on training in permaculture—a system of design that promotes sustainability through the study and replication of systems that occur in nature. Residents are also coached in CRP’s philosophy of self-empowerment and change.

In 2017, CRP and Communitecture joined forces to create a sleeping pod village for 15 houseless veterans in Clackamas County. The purpose of the Clackamas County Veterans Village (CCVV) is to provide shelter, facilities, and services for Veterans who are homeless so as to facilitate a transition to permanent housing. The project is the third version of their “Partners on Dwelling” initiative. 

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, CRP is working to build back its capacity to take on more place-making and place-justice initiatives. After two years of an online format for the Village Building Convergence, the event is finally taking place in person again. 

We had an opportunity to have an extended conversation with Mark Lakeman of The City Repair Project and Communitecture on Social Design Insights. Listen to the episodes below.

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Since 2015, Arquitectura Expandida has been working on Le Casa de le Lluvia, or the Brainstorming House, in Bogotá. The project is conceived as a cultural and environmental community center in a context of informality and scarce investment from municipal authorities. Since its conception, the process has been promoted by several community leaders and collectives from seven neighborhoods around the Fucha River in the eastern hills of Bogotá. Together, they constantly promote manifold, small-scale projects to improve the neighborhood, from sanitation to reforestation, waste cleanup, and land removal. These are the kind of socio-spatial improvements that should be provided/supported by the municipality, however, due to the legal constraints affecting the entire neighborhood (a legalization process that has lasted over 20 years), local authorities are reluctant to execute major (and urgent) infrastructure projects. 

Since 2015, the Fucha neighborhoods have been regularized by the mayor’s office. However, this regulation was announced alongside news of extensive damages to property and the displacement of families who live in an area qualified as at risk of natural disasters. Moreover, the public administration is not willing to invest in mitigation, although it has done so to enable other strategic urban projects. Now, La Casa de la LLuvia has become a neighborhood symbol of resistance and of the right to the city, for which many families have fought after years of state neglect.

We had an opportunity to have an extended conversation with Arquitectura Expandida on Social Design Insights. Listen to the episode below.

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Estudio Teddy Cruz + Forman has worked at many scales and in many contexts. Much of their work focuses on the activation of small spaces – taking neglected urban areas and developing them into community resources. Through this approach, planners and architects can begin to transform neighborhoods under the nose of existing and ossified zoning psychologies.

Simultaneously, Estudio Teddy Cruz + Forman has been at the frontier of blending design and policy. Historically, there has been very little collaboration between the leaders of Tijuana and San Diego, despite their proximity and shared resources (such as a watershed). In 2013, Forman and Cruz were recruited by San Diego mayor Bob Filner to develop the Civic Innovation Lab – an ambitious project to bring designers into City Hall and develop new practices for engaging marginalized communities and strengthening the urban relationship with Tijuana. Although the project was short-lived, it remains one of the few examples where such an integration was attempted in the U.S.

We had an opportunity to have an extended conversation with Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman on Social Design Insights. Listen to the episodes below.

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The projects of Recetas Urbanas include building cheap ‘condos’ on rooftops, attaching micro-apartments to scaffolding or placing them on stilts in alleyways, and disassembling buildings slated for demolition and reassembling them into art centers. The collective exploits loopholes in civic law to create community gathering spaces, playgrounds, and other civic amenities which the city is unwilling or unable to provide. Through this work, Recetas Urbanas introduces two layers of provocation; by providing necessary amenities through novel means, the group calls attention to the absence of such amenities, as well as to the fact that subversion is necessary to achieve them.

Most recently, Recetas Urbanas has confronted the effects of the mortgage and dispossession crisis in Spain. The collective also works alongside Arquitectura Colectiva, an international association of approximately 80 collectives of artists, architects, and hackers.

We had an opportunity to have an extended conversation with Recetas Urbanas’s founder Santiago Cirugeda on Social Design Insights. Listen to the episode below.

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Santiago Cirugeda – Spain’s ‘Guerrilla Architect’ – explains how he challenges urban authority and makes neighborhoods work for everyone.

Recetas Urbanas is a Curry Stone Foundation Social Design Circle Honoree. Read more about it here.

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Current members of Arquitectura Expandida are: Ana Lopez Ortego, Harold Guyaux, Randy Orjuela, Marina Tejedor, Felipe González. Arquitectura Expandida discusses its approach to working in informal communities alongside (and sometimes around) government.

Arquitectura Expandida is a Curry Stone Foundation Social Design Circle Honoree. Read more about it here.

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Mark Lakeman of the City Repair Project discusses motives and methods for igniting neighborhood change, street by street.

The City Repair Project is a Curry Stone Foundation Social Design Circle Honoree. Read more about it here.

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Cruz, an American architect, urbanist, and educator with Fonna Forman, a noted political theorist, created a joint practice in 2010. Both are currently professors at the University of California, San Diego. They are also directors of the UCSD Cross-Border Initiative.

Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman of Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman discuss their practice at the Tijuana/San Diego border and how design transcends politics.

Estudio Teddy Cruz + Forman is a Curry Stone Foundation Social Design Circle Honoree. Read more about it here.

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