Socializing Architecture

At the intersection of architecture, art, public culture,and political theory, Socializing Architecture urges architectsand urbanists to mobilize a new public imaginationtoward a more just and equitable urbanization.Drawn from decades of lived experience, Teddy Cruz andFonna Forman engage the San Diego –Tijuana borderregion as a global laboratory to address the central challengesof urbanization today: deepening social andeconomic inequality, dramatic migratory shifts, explosiveurban informality, climate disruption, the thickeningof border walls, and the decline of public thinking.Following Spatializing Justice, Socializing Architecture isthe second part of a two-volume monograph. It continuesto build a compelling case for architects and urbandesigners to intervene in the contested space betweenpublic and private interests. Through analysis and diversecase studies, the authors demonstrate strategies for alteringexclusionary urban policies and advancing instead amore equitable and convivial architecture.

Professors Cruz and Forman are principals in ESTUDIO TEDDYCRUZ + FONNA FORMAN, a research-based political and architecturalpractice in San Diego. They lead a variety of urbanresearch agendas and civic/public interventions in the SanDiego–Tijuana border region and beyond. They also direct theUniversity of California, San Diego’s Center on Global Justice,which focuses on community-based solutions to poverty andenvironmental crisis.