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Liz Ogbu is an American
architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
,
designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exp ...
and
urbanist Urbanism is the study of how inhabitants of urban areas, such as towns and cities, interact with the built environment. It is a direct component of disciplines such as urban planning, which is the profession focusing on the physical design and m ...
whose work focuses on issues related to
community building Community building is a field of practices directed toward the creation or enhancement of community among individuals within a regional area (such as a neighborhood) or with a common need or interest. It is often encompassed under the fields of c ...
and
spatial justice Spatial justice links social justice to space, most notably in the works of geographers David Harvey and Edward W. Soja. The field analyzes the impact of regional planning and urban planning decisions. It is promoted by the scholarly tradition of c ...
. She is the founder and principal of the design consulting firm Studio O.


Early life and education

Ogbu was raised in
Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...
, by parents who had both immigrated from
Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
. Her first architecture project was designing a second home for her family in her father's village in Nigeria when she was in high school. Ogbu earned her B.A. at Wellesley College, where she studied urban economics and sociology, while also taking architecture courses at
MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
. She then studied architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she earned a master's degree.


Career

Ogbu is the principal of the design consulting firm Studio O, which she founded in 2012. Prior to launching her firm, Ogbu served as design director at Public Architecture, Innovator-in-Residence at the nonprofit wing of the design firm
IDEO IDEO () is a design and consulting firm with offices in the U.S., England, Germany, Japan, and China. It was founded in Palo Alto, California, in 1991. The company's 700 staff uses a design thinking approach to design products, services, enviro ...
, and Senior Fellow of the
Design Futures Council The Design Futures Council is an interdisciplinary network of design, product, and construction leaders exploring global trends, challenges, and opportunities to advance innovation and shape the future of the industry and environment. Members inclu ...
. She also taught courses in design at Stanford University, the
University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...
, and
California College of the Arts California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996 it opened a second campus in Sa ...
. One prominent component of Liz Ogbu’s career is her study of spatial justice, which refers to "physical and emotional space to feel safe, heard, and in control of one's surroundings." According to Ogbu, spatial justice means that justice has a geography and that the equitable distribution of access, services, and outcomes is a basic human right: "A lack of spatial justice isn’t just about the deprivation of physical resources like housing or parks, but also the wide range of devastating interrelated social, economic, and health repercussions." Ogbu has published research papers on various topics, one of which is "Reframing Practice: Identifying a Framework for Social Impact Design." Ogbu is the 2009 recipient of the Global Innovation Prize from the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction, a 2013 member of ''Public Interest Design'''s Top 100, and a 2014 Aspen Ideas Scholar. In 2016 she was the Droga Architect in Residence at the Australian Institute of Architects. She is the 2019 recipient of the International Interior Design Association's Titan Award for "service to the interior design profession," and the 2020 recipient of the Southface Institute's Argon Award for Excellence in Sustainability. In 2021 she received a Michael Rubinger Community Fellowship award from the
Local Initiatives Support Corporation The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) is a US non-profit community development financial institution (CDFI) that supports community development initiatives across the country. It has offices in nearly 40 cities and works across 2,100 r ...
for her work advancing "the development of the Social Impact Protocol for affordable housing, a tool for evaluating and setting up accountability for the social impacts of housing redevelopment." According to John Cary, author of ''Design for Good'', "Liz Ogbu uniquely and bravely uses design to do the hard work of community healing, by acknowledging buried pain and trauma that is too often overlooked."


NOW Hunter's Point

One of Studio O's projects is a partnership with the San Francisco community of Bayview-Hunter's Point –– titled NOW Hunter's Point –– which aims to improve community infrastructure on a 34-acre plot of land vacated by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company while avoiding the negative impacts of
gentrification Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and planning. Gentrification often increases the ec ...
. In order to garner input from the community, Ogbu worked with StoryCorps to create a "listening station" where local people could record their stories. According to Harvard University's ''African American Design Nexus'', "Residents, who understood the inevitability of redevelopment, sought to preserve the richly layered history of the site, and to tell stories which had previously had few outlets for sharing." Since 2013, the site has been used as a venue for public art and performance, for providing community services, and as space for recreation. Events staged at the site based on suggestions from the community have included an annual circus, yoga classes, job training workshops, a harvest festival, outdoor film screenings, and health and wellness fairs. At each event, Studio O has gathered feedback from attendees which it has used to inform further planning. According to Joann Gonchar of ''
Architectural Record ''Architectural Record'' is a US-based monthly magazine dedicated to architecture and interior design. "The Record," as it is sometimes colloquially referred to, is widely-recognized as an important historical record of the unfolding debates in a ...
'', "The collected data informed the nearly 2,000-foot-long shoreline park that they subsequently designed."


"Don't be a Dick"

In 2015, working in collaboration with illustrator Ping Zhu and co-authors in the community-engaged design group Equity Collective, Ogbu published a visual primer titled "Dick and Rick". In it, the character Rick is depicted taking cues from the community he seeks to serve, and as a result his design meets the needs of that community and is widely used. Dick, on the other hand, though well intentioned, fails to adequately incorporate community knowledge and agency into his design process, and as a result his design ends up underutilized. The moral of the story is summed up in the humorous slogan, "Don't be a Dick". Both Dick and Rick are portrayed as
white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...
males, while most of the people in the community they serve are
people of color The term "person of color" ( : people of color or persons of color; abbreviated POC) is primarily used to describe any person who is not considered "white". In its current meaning, the term originated in, and is primarily associated with, the U ...
. This was an intentional choice by the creators to reflect the reality of what a typical social impact design project looks like. According to Danya Sherman of ''
Next City ''Next City'' is a national urban affairs magazine and non-profit organization based in Philadelphia. First published in March 2003 as a magazine known as The Next American City, Next City promotes socially, economically and environmentally susta ...
'', "rather than call out specific individuals for being Dicks, the collective created the booklet as a reminder to themselves and all colleagues in the field to constantly ask themselves ... 'How can I be less of a Dick and more of a Rick?'"


Design philosophy

According to Elizabeth Greenspan of ''
Architect Magazine ''Architect Magazine'' is the successor to ''Architecture'', one of a series of periodicals published from before World War I by the American Institute of Architects. Overview This is the sixth iteration of a magazine about the field associate ...
'', Ogbu's practice is defined by a unique approach to design challenges in which she continually returns to the question: "How do you engage people who don’t have a seat at the table and think about them as co-designers in the process?" Ogbu has been quoted as saying: "When people feel stuck and are feeling pain from generations of neglect, it’s not enough to have good intentions. Power needs to be shared to make space for people to share their stories. If we start with incomplete stories –– when we don’t do the work of reaching community voices –– no one can find complete solutions." Eli Meixler of '' Fortune Magazine'' states that "Few people are more committed to the importance of cooperating with communities affected by design than Liz Ogbu."


References


External links


"Liz Ogbu" at Harvard University's African American Design Nexus

TED Talk: "What if gentrification was about healing communities instead of displacing them?"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ogbu, Liz Wellesley College alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni California women architects 21st-century American architects American urban planners African-American designers African-American architects Architects from California American people of Nigerian descent 21st-century American women