Date of Submission
Spring 5-12-2026
Degree Type
Dissertation/Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Architecture
Department
Architecture
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Zamila Karimi
Abstract
This thesis explores the concept of protest architecture, focusing on how temporary, mobile, and tactical structures emerge within social movements to challenge systemic inequities and reclaim public space. Architecture has often been understood as permanent and institutional, yet protest reveals its capacity to be agile, symbolic, and activist. The project is motivated by the recognition that space is never neutral—it both reflects and produces relations of power. Influences include Teddy Cruz’s work on borderlands and architecture as civic infrastructure, Henri Lefebvre’s foundational theories of the production of space and the right to the city, and Angela Davis’s Black Studies scholarship on liberation, visibility, and collective struggle. Additionally, Nick Newman’s typologies of protest-specific structures and Bryan C. Lee Jr.’s framing of design as protest have shaped my personal discovery of this topic, underscoring the intersection of architecture, equity, and activism.
The research situates protest architecture within four overlapping frameworks: design activism and socially engaged architecture, core protest architecture, tactical urbanism and temporary interventions, and historical- political context. Together, these categories demonstrate how architecture participates in movements for justice through barricades, encampments, pop-up interventions, and symbolic gestures that reconfigure civic space.
If protest architecture is studied as a system of typologies— temporary, mobile, and care-centered—then new adaptive spatial components can be designed to protect and sustain collective resistance in public space.
The expected impact of this work is twofold: first, to expand architectural discourse by positioning protest architecture as a legitimate design practice that enacts advocacy, resistance, and prefigurative futures; and second, to provide insight for communities, activists, and practitioners seeking strategies for reclaiming space in the face of spatial injustice. The intended audience includes students and scholars in architecture, urban design, and Black Studies, as well as community organizations and policymakers interested in equity-driven spatial interventions. Ultimately, this thesis highlights architecture, when treated as a social art, can act as both symbol and infrastructure of resistance, reclaiming space, empowering communities, and envisioning alternative futures.