Projects

Design As a Social Act: Tales of Architectural Activism
Produced and Directed by Ayda Melika and Susanne Cowan

This trilogy of films shows how the social upheavals of the 1960s  led to the development of social approaches for designing the built environment.  This documentary draws on ten oral history interviews with designers and researchers of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning. 
Part 1: Social Factors (35 min)
Part 2: Community Design (19 min)
Part 3: Participatory Design (21 min)
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This project received funding for research travel and supplies from the Joan E. Draper Architectural Research Endowment,  College of Environmental Design, University of California, Berkeley.

Published by Reform by Activism and Design, Bozeman, MT, October, 2014.

The Neighborhood Renaissance: Community Organizing and Uneven Development in St. Louis”​​ 
Book Manuscript in Progress​ by Susanne Cowan 

As white flight decimated the population and economies of industrial cities like St. Louis, organizers in some inner city neighborhoods fought to conserve and revitalize their communities. Mayors and city planners worked with these groups, hoping they had the power to protect and expand the dwindling middle class. St. Louis used the flexibility of block grants to shift federal funding from the poorest districts of the mostly black north side toward transitioning neighborhoods with organized white middle class populations in the near south and central west areas of the city.  While the work done by these groups did indeed revitalize neighborhoods once in decline, they did so at the expense of the interests of the poorer residents, triggering gentrification, and dominating government resources that had once been used in the lowest-income districts. This book will explore how community organizing and uneven development policies exacerbated existing racial and class segregation in St. Louis.