Block by Block: Aligning Design and Housing Justice with Zoning Reform

Gabriel Cuéllar co-directs Cadaster with Athar Mufreh and is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Michigan. His practice develops design frameworks in collaboration with local governments and community-based organizations, advancing systemic spatial transformation through collective land stewardship models and restructured property systems. His writing, exhibitions, design projects, and teaching explore how spatial creativity can support social movements, particularly in relation to land, housing, and urban and environmental matters. Prior to establishing Cadaster—recipient of the Architectural League Prize in 2018—Cuéllar worked as a designer with Philippe Rahm architectes, Studio Anne Holtrop, and Gramazio & Kohler. He is currently a doctoral researcher in the Borders & Territories research group at Delft University of Technology.

De Peter Yi is the founder of the research and design studio Rebuild Collective, and an Assistant Professor in Architecture at the University of Cincinnati. His research uncovers how individual acts of building scale to create collective impact. His recent work includes writing, workshops, and design projects that advance new housing models, land use approaches, and building repair and reuse. Previously, he was a cofounder and co-director of 1+1+ Architects in Detroit and a designer with Studio Gang Architects in Chicago. He has also taught at the University of Michigan as a lecturer and as the Walter B. Sanders Research Fellow. He is the author of Building Subjects (Standpunkte, 2020), a book on collectively adapted housing typologies in China.

Ann Lui is an architect, principal of Future Firm, and Associate Professor of Practice at the University of Chicago. Previously, she practiced at SOM, Ann Beha Architects, and Morphosis Architects. Ann was co-curator of the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018 titled Dimensions of Citizenship. She co-edited Public Space? Lost and Found (MIT/SA+P Press, 2015) on critical and aesthetic practices in the civic realm. Ann was recently named Newcity’s “Designer of the Moment” (2018) and Crain’s “40 Under 40” (2018). She holds an SMArchS from MIT and a BArch from Cornell University, where she was awarded the Charles Goodwin Sands Medal and the Clifton Beckwith Brown Memorial Medal.