Joy and Pain – Audacious Acts in Underdeveloped Landscapes: Walter J Hood
Joy and Pain – Audacious Acts in Underdeveloped Landscapes: Walter J Hood
21 April 2026
Time
6.30–8pm
Location
AA Lecture Hall, 36 Bedford Square, WC1B 3ES
This lecture interrogates the American narrative of community 'underdevelopment,' centring minority communities where the accumulation of cultural and economic capital has been deliberately constrained. It reframes underdevelopment not as cultural absence, but as the result of racism, structural disinvestment, housing discrimination and inequitable policies that continue to shape the American landscape.
Through the lens of Hood Design Studio’s cultural practice, and in collaboration with arts institutions, nonprofit organisations and local agencies, the work reveals stories embedded in place, stories of erasure, resilience and persistence. These layered narratives illuminate both the challenges and possibilities of America’s postcolonial landscape. The studio’s tripartite practice – community lifeways, the everyday and mundane, and commemoration – serves as a framework for uncovering lost community memories, physical palimpsests and practices, transforming them into new patterns and opportunities for ritual and development.
The event will conclude with a conversation between Walter J Hood and Nana Biamah-Ofosu.
The publication The African Ancestors Garden: History and Memory at the International African American Museum will be available to purchase.
Speakers
Walter J Hood, a multidisciplinary designer from Charlotte, North Carolina, is globally recognised for his contributions in art, landscape architecture, urbanism and research. He founded Hood Design Studio in Oakland, CA in 1992, and now leads the practice as its creative director. His passion for landscape and urbanism emerges from its broad, democratic scope, allowing experiences beyond architectural constraints. Infusing African American cultural arts into his philosophy, he established a unique voice, reshaping spaces to reflect contemporary needs without erasing their history. A retired professor at UC Berkeley and former Harvard University educator, Walter penned Black Landscapes Matter and has received accolades like the 2019 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2021 Architectural League’s President’s Medal award, 2023 WSJ Magazine Innovator in Design award, and most recently, the 2025 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture.
Nana Biamah-Ofosu is a Ghanaian-British architect and founder of YAA Projects, an architecture, design and research practice dedicated to exploring counter-histories and engaging with material and diasporic cultures through the making, writing and speaking of architecture. She has taught at the inaugural Venice Biennale College Architettura, Kingston University and currently leads Diploma Unit 5 at the AA. She is also a member of the African Future Institute’s Nomadic African Studio core faculty. Nana has served on the juries of several awards, including the RIBA Silver Medal and the Commonwealth Association of Architects awards, and is currently a member of the RIBA Awards Working Group and the Soane Medal Committee. As a writer, she explores the social, political, and cultural impact of design and architecture, engaging with contemporary practitioners to define new paths towards a more critical, expansive, and inclusive discourse on the built environment.
Accessibility
Ramp access to the AA Lecture Hall is available on request using the intercom at the entrance to 36 Bedford Square, and we have an accessible toilet on site. Please get in touch to let us know of any access requirements that you might have and how we can best accommodate these. If you are unable to attend physically but would like to participate in the event remotely please email publicprogramme@aaschool.ac.uk