Design as a human right, not a luxury or a privilege, has been a part of SCI-Arc's mission and pedagogy since the school’s founding in 1972. It is in this spirit that, in January 2019, SCI-Arc in partnership with the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles, turned the school’s attention to one of the most pressing issues of our moment and our city: homelessness. In a four-day, all-school workshop, SCI-Arc came together as a community of designers to make a contribution to the body of thinking on homelessness. Working together, faculty, students, alumni, and key voices from around Los Angeles, identified a set of questions about homelessness, housing, policy, services, and public perceptions. Over four days, small groups of SCI-Arc students answered these questions with original research and design proposals. The charrette began with an opening event featuring presentations and discussion from major voices on the homelessness situation in Los Angeles, and experts on the situation joined the school’s faculty over the course of the charrette to help advise the student groups. Students, faculty, alumni, and trustees of the school were joined by many of the guest experts as well as members of the public to discuss the proposals. Nearly eighty projects were shown in a public exhibition at SCI-Arc.

View the Report on the Homelessness Charrette here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qfzwukfv4xjcyo5/Report_SCI-Arc_HomelessnessCharrette_2019.pdf