All of the Above
Janette Komoda Kim
My work addresses climate justice by empowering communities to realize a more equitable distribution of land and resources. To address such complex issues, I often collaborate with community-based organizations and municipal agencies, and I combine tools of urban, architectural, and multimedia design.
Over the years, I’ve been drawn to approaches that I believe get to the roots of systemic change. One—decision-making tools—deals with the process of community empowerment. The other—property reform—shapes the space of community life.
My decision-making tools help community members explore, imagine, and debate potential responses to complex urban issues in a healthy, playful way. For example, I designed three board games, called In It Together, Bartertown, and Mix & Match, which play out more just and equitable responses to wildfires and rising seas. I also wrote a book called The Underdome Guide to Energy Reform, which exposes the politics behind sustainable design, and I co-produced a podcast series called Safari, which gives subway riders a tour of urban animal life just outside their windows. I reflect on such methods by writing about public engagement. I advocate for more direct, collaborative governance by those who are most impacted by design.
I also reimagine the space of property ownership. My goal is to foster regenerative economies and a more reciprocal relationship between people and land. In the Resilient by Design Challenge, for example, our team designed collectively-owned housing to protect communities from displacement due to sea level rise and gentrification. I also designed a hotel in Sichuan, China and a farmhouse in Sonoma, CA, where people can engage with bamboo and chapparal landscapes around them. I also research and write about exceptional community-based initiatives. I am currently writing a book called Property Playbook, which illustrates how activists and architects can co-opt property ownership to foster ecological vitality and repair the dispossession of land from workers and BIPOC people.
These projects (and a few others) are also linked below. Please be in touch!
Books
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BartertownBay Area Conservation and Development Commission
2017-18
Bartertown is a climate change board game commissioned by the Bay Area Conservation and Development Commission’s Adapt to Rising Tides program. BCDC used 8 sets of the game as a public engagement tool at interagency and public meetings. Bartertown imagines a world without money to show how social networks stressed or strengthened by rising seas. A second version of the game was commissioned by Forecast Berlin for the Housing the Human Festival and has been played around the world.
Design team
Janette Komoda Kim/Urban Works Agency, with research assistants: Jen Tai, Clare Hacko, Alma Davila, Zhongwei Wang, and Maria Ramirez Perez.
YBCA Exhibition
with Neeraj Bhatia, Antje Steinmuller, and Chris Roach at the Urban Works Agency.
Grants/Awards
Caltrans Regional Planning Grant awarded to Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), BCDC, Caltrans District 4, and Bay Area Regional Collaborative (BARC). Awarded by Future Architecture Platform and Forecast Berlin for Housing the Human Festival.
Exhibitions / Performances
Royal Academy of Arts (2019), MIT Keller Gallery (2020), Contemporary Jewish Museum (2020), Exploratorium (2019), Radialsystem (2019), Roca London Gallery (2019), Oslo Architecture Triennale Nasjonalmuseed (2019), UC Santa Barbara Wireframe Lab (2019), SPUR San Frnacisco (2019), Carnegie Museum of Art & Carnegia Mellon University (2019), Yerba Buena Center for the arts (2018-9), Imagining America Conference (2017).
Image CreditsFirst section, clockwise from top: Janette Kim/Urban Works Agency, Namhi Kwun. and Istvan Virag. Second Section, clockwise from top: Istvan Virag, Housing the Human Festival, Janette Kim/Urban Works Agency.
More Information
Please visit the Urban Works Agency website here and here.