Occupy architecture London

[2011 - 2012]

I led ethnographic and site research into the London Race Riots of 2011, which broke out in response to police shooting of Mark Duggan. I spent time in the Broadwater Farm Estates, a public housing complex where Mark and his family lived, and the original site of peaceful protests that later traveled to the Tottenham High Street and evolved into city-wide riots. I also spent time at the Tottenham police station to interview a community officer and observe the social and spatial dynamics of the reception area. Overall, I examined the spatial and social relationships between the isolated, stark, and surveillance-oriented design of public housing estates in relation to the dense, open, and porous commercial high streets, and how the riots manifested across different spatial forms.