Disrupting Policing

Spring Thesis Studio 2018: Building as Resistance

A community resource project for Los Angeles’s impoverished Skid Row neighborhood. This project and its accompanying research examine the history of policing and incarceration in the United States and how that history and the policies and systems it has spawned influence the day to day lives of Skid Row residents today.

This project has two main programs, an interior and an exterior. The interior program is a two level physical database which allows residents to self report any information about or interactions they have with law enforcement based surveillance in the neighborhood. This community sourced data is then gathered and reflected in a 3D map, which shows residents where and how to avoid surveillance and interactions with police. As the modes of surveillance change the data and map can be updated as new information is reported.

The exterior program is a removable façade of different sized boxes (referred to as the toolkit) which can be rearranged and used at the will of any user. While this project explores some potential uses of the three sided boxes such as tables, chairs, blockades, signage, etc. The purpose and potential uses of the toolkit is left to the users.

The purpose of this project is to ask the question “What are we willing to do to overcome injustice?” and “Who is left behind by the solutions we determine to be appropriate?”.