Speaking to the public at large, the student or the professional, architecture is the practice found in between science and art. Borrowing from both disciplines the means to ignore politics for aesthetics--an ends for which it seemingly arrived at scientifically. Architects often assert that the field possesses only marginal political agency. Using Fedric Jameson's 'Is Space Political,' and Craig Wilkins 'The Aesthetics of Equity' I would like for the class to consider and begin to challenge the inherent underpinnings of racialized absences and spatialized inequities that the discipline creates inside and outside of academia as well.

SPEAKERS: Amy Obonaga and Neil Padukone

Amy currently works for the NYC Department of City Planning as an Urban Designer for the borough of Staten Island. She is also the Principal and Founder of 20º20º Design Studio, a multi-disciplinary firm that specializes in sustainable design. While in East Africa Amy completed a project with Slum Dwellers International (SDI), a network of community-based organizations focused on the urban poor throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America, preparing a master plan and design for a mixed-use development to bring new housing to Kampala, Uganda.

Amy lives on Staten Island and, when not working, keeps pretty busy chasing her two little ones around the house.

Neil leads the NYC Manufacturing & Industrial Innovation Council (MaiiC), a mayoral initiative to support the businesses and 500,000 workers in New York City's industrial sector with the policy, talent, and innovation support that they need to thrive. He is also an adjunct professor of transportation policy at City College of New York's Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership, and a fellow of the Council of Urban Professionals. Neil is the author of ‘Beyond South Asia: India’s Strategic Evolution and the Reintegration of the Subcontinent’ (Bloomsbury, 2014). A proud New York City native, Neil speaks Spanish, Hindi/Urdu, and Arabic, and plays guitar, sitar, and oud in Salsa Masala, an award-winning Indo-Latin funk band.