Architecture and Inequity: New Practices of Care – Panel 3: Community Care

Care has often been overlooked in the planning of our cities, sometimes lagging miles behind economic, functional or historic considerations. This year's annual LFA symposium, in collaboration with the Royal Academy, looked to explore some of these issues.

'Architecture and Inequity: New Practices of Care’ brought together conversations surrounding the responsibility of architecture and architects to create equitable and caring environments, along with proposals to address the systemic inequalities in our cities.

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Panel 3: Community Care
The final panel recognises the role of local communities in developing inclusive and caring cities. Our panellists will discuss the challenges they face and the spatial practices that can be used to empower and inspire them.

The Spatial Politics of Care in Post-Blast Beirut
Aude Azzi: architectural designer and researcher, member of the Arab Centre for Architecture and co founder of the GSAPP Collective for Beirut; Roula Salamoun: architect and designer, founder of a Beirut-based multi-disciplinary practice and co-founder of the GSAPP Collective for Beirut; Frederik Weissenborn: researcher and Programme Manager at the Design Council.
This paper discusses the crises that have rocked Beirut since the 2020 port explosion and considers some of the spatial practices that have emerged to address and alleviate them.

Spatial Justice. A New Model of Spatial Equity and Community Care
Estefany Oropeza (on behalf of REDD Collective/ Spatial Justice): Postgraduate student at London School of Architecture, Architectural Assistant at DSDHA and founder of REDD, a design collective tied to the LSA, working on issues of spatial and social justice.
Grassroots organisations in Hackney work to provide essential care for those at the intersections of society. These groups however remain spatially vulnerable to the whims of Government, evictions and erasure. This paper offers a new model of community infrastructure – one built on community empowerment, mutual aid, resilience and compassion.

Remembering the Forgotten Fringes
Sohanna Srinivasan: architect and educator of Indian origin and Middle-Eastern upbringing, guest tutor at Kingston University School of Art.
Remembering the forgotten fringes focusses on our cities’ overlooked threshold spaces that lie between multiple identities and are home to often underrepresented voices. With projects and research situated in Chandigarh, Aldgate and Tottenham, each proposes an architectural intervention that celebrates the liminal and forges a new narrative through community participation and the ‘remixing’ of pluralistic identities.

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