Vigilantism issue launch

Joseph Altshuler is cofounder of Could Be Architecture, a Chicago-based design practice, an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the founding editor of SOILED, an architectural literary magazine. His teaching, practice, and scholarship explore architecture’s capacity to build lively audiences, initiate serious play, and amplify participation in civic life. Altshuler is the coauthor of Creatures Are Stirring: A Guide to Architectural Companionship (Applied Research and Design Publishing, 2021).

Germane Barnes is the founder of Studio Barnes and an Assistant Professor and Director of the Community Housing Identity Lab (CHIL) at the University of Miami School of Architecture. His research and design practice investigates the connection between architecture and identity. Mining architecture’s social and political agency, he examines how the built environment influences black domesticity. He is the 2021 Harvard GSD Wheelwright Prize winner, Rome Prize Fellow, and winner of the Architectural League Prize. His design and research contributions have been published and exhibited in several international institutions, most notably The Museum of Modern Art, Chicago Architecture Biennial, Pin-Up Magazine, The Graham Foundation, The New York Times, Architect Magazine, DesignMIAMI/Art Basel, The Swiss Institute, Metropolis Magazine, Curbed, and The National Museum of African American History, where he was identified as one of the future designers on the rise.

Ashley Bigham is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the Knowlton School of Architecture and codirector of Outpost Office. She was the 2015-2016 Walter B. Sanders Fellow at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. In 2014, Bigham was a Fulbright Research Fellow at the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe in Lviv, Ukraine. She holds a Master of Architecture from Yale University and a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Tennessee, where she was awarded the Tau Sigma Delta Bronze Medal for best graduating project. Bigham’s design work has been exhibited at the A+D Museum, the University of Michigan, Harvard University GSD, Yale School of Architecture, and Princeton School of Architecture. Her work has been featured in architectural publications including Metropolis, Mark Magazine, Places Journal, PLAT, STUDIO, POOL, and CLOG.

Born in Alabama, Jennifer Bonner is Associate Professor of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Bonner founded MALL in 2009, a creative practice that stands for Mass Architectural Loopty Loops or Maximum Arches with Limited Liability—an acronym with built-in flexibility. She is the author of A Guide to the Dirty South: Atlanta, faculty editor of Harvard GSD’s Platform: Still Life, and guest editor for ART PAPERS special issue on architecture and design of Los Angeles. Bonner is an award-winning designer and has been featured in several publications, exhibitions, and installations on art and architecture.

Sekou Cooke is an architectural practitioner and educator based in Syracuse, NY. He is currently Assistant Professor at Syracuse University’s School of Architecture. Through his professional practice, sekou cooke STUDIO, he brings thoughtful processes and rigorous experimentation to a vast array of project types. His current research centers on the emergent field of Hip-Hop Architecture, a theoretical movement reflecting the core tenets of hip-hop culture with the power to create meaningful impact on the built environment and give voice to the marginalized and underrepresented within design practice. Cooke holds a B.Arch from Cornell University and an M.Arch from Harvard University.

Shawhin Roudbari is an assistant professor in Environmental Design at the University of Colorado Boulder. In his research, Roudbari studies ways designers organize to address social problems. He bridges sociological studies of social movements and race with architectural theory. Roudbari is a founding member of the Dissent by Design Collective, which uses design and theory building to investigate how dissent and counter-hegemonic tactics play out in urban landscapes. His work contributes to theories of contentious politics in the spatial professions and employs ethnographic methods.

Bobby Joe Smith III is an Indigenous (Lakota) and Black graphic designer, educator, and media artist based in Los Angeles. As an MFA candidate in UCLA’s Design Media Arts program, he is developing poetic methodologies in design and emerging media that are deeply informed by Black, Indigenous, Feminist, and Queer decolonial grammars.