Image: Architects Against Housing Alienation, “We Demand Collective Ownership.”

ARC3018HF (LEC0102) 
Instructor: Karen Kubey

Housing is a human right. For too long, our leaders have approached our housing crisis – and the realization of the right to housing – solely as political and economic problems. This approach has failed, leaving at least 1 billion people worldwide inadequately housed. We must also address the right to housing as an architectural issue, one of spatial justice. This will allow us to meet the human needs of residents, and to respond to what is not only a political failure, but a failure of imagination.

“Architecture and the Right to Housing” is part of “End Housing Alienation Now!” a Cross-Canada Superstudio convened across at least 11 Canadian faculties of architecture by Architects Against Housing Alienation. (AAHA). AAHA argues that the root of the Canadian housing crisis is “housing alienation – the condition of being separated from our fundamental connections to home.” AAHA asserts, “We can end housing alienation by rebuilding connections to land, to community, and to creative self-determination.”

Each student in our thesis cohort will engage in their own way with one or more of the Superstudio’s shared principles: Indigenous solidarity, housing decommodification, holistic quality, and collaboration. Each thesis project will expand on one of AAHA’s 10 “demands” to end housing alienation, or present a new one. Our cohort will engage with non-architectural partners and will participate in common online Superstudio workshops and reviews with paired schools. All final student projects will be featured in an online Superstudio exhibition.

Our fall 2025 seminar will be student-driven, analyzing current literature on social housing design and social, economic, health, and racial equity, alongside exemplary architectural case studies. We will draw from multidisciplinary sources, including architectural theory, oral history, and public health research. Seminar sessions will center on student oral, written, and graphic presentations, with robust synchronous and asynchronous discussion. Each student will complete the fall term with an individual literature review and design brief to drive their winter 2026 design work.

Prof. Kubey will support independent student projects at a range of scales, sited anywhere in the world, with a wide variety of final formats. The ideal student for this course is curious, interested in developing their research capacity, and wanting to make connections between housing design and the most pressing political questions of our time. What is at stake is not only an urgent contribution to the field of architecture, but also critical material in the global fight for housing justice.

Image: Architects Against Housing Alienation, “We Demand Collective Ownership.”