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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on Property
Selected Writing
“Manifold Enclosures: Decommodifying Property at Esther’s Orbit Room,” in Public Culture, “Other than the City: Variations on a Theme” Vol 34:3, ed. Arjun Appaduraii, Erica Robles Anderson and Vyjayanthi V. Rao, with Keller Easterling (Duke University Press)., 2022.
This article describes the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative’s transformation of West Oakland’s last remaining jazz bar into a “home for Black arts and culture keepers” to reveal how flexible buildings can enable the collective management of community-owned property. Link to Publication.
“Shearing Property: Replatting Climate Risk,” in Perspecta, “Atopia,” ed. Alexis Hyman, Melinda Agron, Timon Covelli, David Langdon, Vol 54 (MIT Press): 44-53, 2021.
This article reflects on the Resilient Equity Hubs project’s Phase 2 work, and asks how architects can reshape property ownership in the face of climate change. The piece offers a critical reading of Stewart Brand’s How Buildings Learn, and unpacks the project’s techniques for activating incremental change. Link to Publication
“Accidental Commons,” in Architecture from Public to Commons. ed. Marcelo López-Diaz. (Taylor & Francis: 2023).
This article explores the accidental collectives forged by climate change. I suggest that collectives can be equitable and just if they introduce new techniques to the commons. While intentional commons are very good at creating abundance and facilitating consent, accidental collectives must add to this the abilities to redistribute resources and repair deep legacies of inequity. Further, they must embrace a process of agonistic debate to welcome plural perspectives and diverse forms of knowledge. I describe two projects that do just this, projects I created as part of the 2017-18 Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge: Resilient Equity Hubs, which imagines how collective ownership of land can support adaptation to sea level rise, and In It Together, a board game that facilitates decision-making among diverse neighborhood stakeholders. Link to publication.
Please also see Property Playbook