The Great Recession has produced a new theory of architecture; per US Secretary for Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, 'The built environment helped create the economic crisis.' Recognizing the built environment as protagonist to, or at least accomplice of, financial catastrophe underlines the urgency of designing for the possibilities and pitfalls of American democratic capitalism. By way of a post-apocalyptic settlement in Montréal, a public learning centre about finance and architecture in New York City, and a plan for the riverfront of Newark, New Jersey, this lecture will explore how tools of design might help reform relationships between people and their living environments.
Damon Rich currently serves as the Urban Designer for the City of Newark, New Jersey. His design work has been exhibited at venues including the 2008 Venice Biennale, Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and Netherlands Architecture Institute. In 1997, he founded the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), a New York City non-profit organisation that uses the power of design and art to increase the impact of public participation in urban planning and community development, where he was the Creative Director for ten years.