Dissent by Design is a research collective that explores ways architecture upholds systems of oppression and ways architects strive to challenge those systems.
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In our projects, we use ethnographic and architectural methods. On the one hand, we aim to address the depoliticization of design. On the other hand, we seek to theorize design's complicity in contentious social problems.
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Our research areas include: (a) ethnographies of radical activism and social movement formation in the design professions; (b) transdisciplinary research on white supremacy and the racialization of space; (c) the politics of contentious social problems in community-engaged design.
projects
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Woman, Life, Freedom Participatory Collage. In this project, we are constructing a large-format collage of the women-led revolutionary movement taking place in Iran. We are developing a digital platform for public participation in building a library of collage elements. Our group will build the collage on critical and speculative spatial analysis. Stay tuned for more.
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Climate Vulnerability and Incarceration. This is part of a larger interdisciplinary effort of investigating ways the design and engineering of prisons exacerbate incarcerated people's vulnerability to climate hazards. We produced an exhibit, "You Couldn't Hide From It" exhibit at CU Boulder in conjunction with the UN Right Here, Right Now summit on climate change and human rights.
Participatory urban derive. In this project we develop a methodology to engage communities in challenging anti-Asian racism through critical engagement in racialized landscapes.
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White Space. A study of racism of institutional spaces. We are documenting, analyzing, and interpreting university campus architecture as spaces of white hegemony. (Supported in part by the National Science Foundation and CU Boulder Program in Environmental Design.)
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Participatory Antiracist Design. In this collaboration with a local community institution, we work with community members to document and visualize spaces of whiteness and racism. (Supported by the CU Boulder Office of Outreach and Engagement.)
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Colorblind Racism in Architecture. We designed and installed an exhibit on colorblind racist frames (building on the work of sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and others) at the Environmental Design Gallery at the University of Colorado Boulder. This project evolved into a set of provocations posted to instagram via @dissentxdesign.
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Political Engagement. In this four year ethnography of politically active designers and organizations, we studies racial, labor, and gender equity and justice activism in architecture and allied professions in the AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction) industries. (Supported by the National Science Foundation.)
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Vigilantism. In this collaboration with Germane Barnes (University of Miami, Studio Barnes) and Iker Gil (MAS Context), we edited a special issue of MAS Context devoted to conceptualizing and theorizing architectures of vigilantism. (Supported in part by the National Science Foundation.)
our collective
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We're a team of undergraduate, graduate, staff, and faculty researchers and designers at the University of Colorado Boulder's Program in Environmental Design. Our backgrounds span architecture, ethnic studies, planning, geography, and sociology. At any given time, we have an active group of about four or five members.
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publications
Click hyperlinks to access PDFs.
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Shawhin Roudbari and Shideh Dashti, “Extreme heat, flooding, wildfires – Colorado’s formerly incarcerated people on the hazards they faced behind bars,” The Conversation, January 22, 2025.
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Barron, Ben Nevis, Shawhin Roudbari, Phaedra C. Pezzullo, Shideh Dashti, and Abbie B. Liel. “‘Because We’re Dying in Here’: A Study of Environmental Vulnerability and Climate Risks in Incarceration Infrastructure.” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2024.
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Roudbari, Shawhin, Aspen Randolph, Chloe Nicklas, “Architectures of White Supremacy: Measuring Racism in College Campus Design,” Proceedings of the Association for Collegiate Schools of Architecture, Annual Meeting 112. 2024.
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Niles, Skye, Shawhin Roudbari, Santina Contreras, ““Try to Enlighten People without Pushing it Too Much”: Neoliberal Multiculturalism and The Reformulation of Colonial Racial Hierarchies in International Development," Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. 2023.
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Glade, Sara Christina, Caleb Schmitz, Shawhin Roudbari, Abbie Liel, Shideh Dashti, Shelly Miller, “Hazards and incarceration facilities: evaluating facility-level exposure to floods, wildfires, extreme heat, and landslides in Colorado,” Natural Hazards Review 25.1. 2023.
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Gjata, Joris, Matthew Rowe, Shawhin Roudbari, “Expand or Translate? Theorising Work in Professionals’ Activism,” Professionalism and Social Change: Processes of Differentiation Within, Between and Beyond Professions. 2023.
Glade, Sara Christina, Skye Niles, Shawhin Roudbari, Phaedra C. Pezzullo, Shideh Dashti, Abbie Liel, Shelly Miller, “Disaster resilience and environmental sustainability of incarceration infrastructures: A review of the literature,” International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. 2022.
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Roudbari, Shawhin, Katelyn Warren, Michelle Sanchez, “Participatory Anti-Racist Design,” Proceedings of the Association for Collegiate Schools of Architecture, Annual Meeting 110. 2022.
Roudbari, Shawhin, Ana Quiñones Colon, Ann Dang, “Rendering Racism: visualizing colorblind architecture,” Design Studies. 2022.
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Contreras, Santina and Shawhin Roudbari, “Who’s Learning from Whom? Grassroots International NGOs Learning from Communities in Development Projects,” Development in Practice. 2021.
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Niles, Skye, Shawhin Roudbari, Santina Contreras “Integrating Social Justice and Political Engagement into Engineering,” International Journal of Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace. 2021.
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Roudbari, Shawhin, Germane Barnes, and Skye Niles, “White Space: the architecture of institutional racism.” Proceedings of the Association for Collegiate Schools of Architecture, Annual Meeting 109. 2021.
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Shawhin Roudbari and Germane Barnes, eds. Vigilantism. Chicago: MAS Context. 2021
Roudbari, Shawhin, Germane Barnes, Katherine McKittrick, “Architectures of Kindness and Rebellion: an interview with Katherine McKittrick,” MAS Context 33: Architectures of Vigilantism. 2021
Barnes, Germane and Shawhin Roudbari, “Architectures of Vigilantism,” MAS Context 33: Architectures of Vigilantism. 2021
Barnes, Germane and Shawhin Roudbari, “Collisions,” MAS Context 33: Architectures of Vigilantism. 2021
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Gabriel Cira, Peggy Deamer, Ashton Hamm, James Heard, Will Martin, Quilian Riano, Shawhin Roudbari, and Christian Rutherford, “Template for a cooperative Network of Small Architecture Practices,” MAS Context. 2020
Niles, Skye and Shawhin Roudbari, “Design, Politics, and Infrastructures of Immobility,” Platform, August 3, 2020.
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Shawhin Roudbari, Joris Gjata, and Matthew Rowe, “Contemporary Forms of Social Justice Activism in Architecture,” Proceedings of the Association for Collegiate Schools of Architecture, spring Annual Meeting. 2020
Rowe, Matthew, Joris Gjata, Shawhin Roudbari, “Dissenting Designers: Reading Activism and Advocacy in Architecture through a Sociological Lens,” Architectural Theory Review. 2020.
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Niles, Skye, Santina Contreras, Shawhin Roudbari, Jessica Kaminksy, Jill Harrison, “Resisting and Assisting Engagement with Public Welfare in Engineering Education,” Journal of Engineering Education. 2020.
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Contreras, Santina, Skye Niles, Shawhin Roudbari, Jessica Kaminsky, Jill Harrison, “Bridging the Praxis of Hazards and Development with Resilience,” International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2019.101347. 2019.
Shawhin Roudbari for the Architecture Lobby, "Three Degrees of Ethical Engagement: A Manifesto for Architects," Platform, August 22, 2019.
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Cayer, Aaron, Peggy Deamer, Shawhin Roudbari, Manuel Shvartzberg Carrió, “Socializing Practice: From Small Firms to Cooperative Models of Organization,” in Dodd, Melanie (ed.) Spatial Practices: Modes of Action and Engagement with the City. New York: Routledge. 2019​.
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Shawhin Roudbari, Ana Damari Colon Quinones, Ann Marie Dang, “Forming Anti-racist Spaces,” Proceedings of the Association for Collegiate Schools of Architecture, fall Annual Meeting, 2019.
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Roudbari, Shawhin, Mehdi Heris, Manny Hakhamaneshi, and Shideh Dashti, “Mediating Design Claims: the Politics of Social Media in Iran’s Maskan-e Mehr Social Housing Disaster in the 2017 Halabja Earthquake,” in Natural Hazards Review. 2019.
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Roudbari, Shawhin, “Architecture Without Borders? The globalization of humanitarian architecture culture” in Karim, Farhan. (ed.) Routledge Companion to Architecture and Social Engagement. New York and London: Routledge, Taylor, and Francis, pp. 441-448. 2018
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Roudbari, Shawhin, “Renegade Cosmopolitans: Iranian Architects, Professional Power, and the State,” Iranian Studies, 51.6: 905-930. 10.1080/00210862.2018.1539620. 2018.
contact/Join!
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To connect with the our group, email dissenxdesign@colorado.edu. We occasionally (rarely, really!) check social media, but once upon a time we did IG @dissentxdesign.
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