Arqueertecture, Cistainability & Community living by Jessica GQ Frito

senior project 2015

Arqueertecture, Cistainability & Community Living By: Jessica Friedman “Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of ” BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE In the Department of Human Ecology University of California, Davis 2015

Approved: Sheryl-Ann Simpson Senior Project Chair

David de la Peña Senior Project Advisor

iii

Thank you to everyone who made this project possible, including:

This book is dedicated to:

The Tri-Coop residents (Davis Student Coop, Pierce Coop, Agrarian Effort) The Domes resident Past Orchard Park residents Solano Park residents Solar Community Housing Association (J St, Coop, Corner Coop, Sunwise Coop) Professor Sheryl-Ann Simpson Professor David de la Peña Professor Stephen Wheeler LGBTQIARC, WRRC, CCC Campus Center for the Environment My dad for having the courage to live for the now and pursue your dreams Davis Stands With Ferguson Rachel for asking questions that make me feel heard Nana for being a strong independent woman My mom, Robin, Ben, all my family My queer familia

The hundreds of trans womyn that were murdered because of police brutality and violence Nan Hui Jo, survivor of domestic abuse All political prisoners current and past The QTPOC survivors that fight for their lives daily The Patwin, Wintu & all indigenous nations Anyone who has been displaced from their homes because of gentrification, gendered & racial violence HIV/AIDS warriors Lives lost to US military projects and globalization The workers that keep UC Davis running Victims of bordered geographies Also: Woody Miller, Joyce Miller, Howard Neiman, David Neiman, Yvonne Regaldo, Gramps ‘Al’ Neiman, Eric Hanifan, Cory Micas, y’all are loved.

DISCLAIMER: This project is an exploration in communication. I know that not everyone will understand or want to understand the narratives put forth in the book. My audience is the underrepresented missing voices in the higher educational institutions. I hope that one day people can start to understand their own white privilege and begin to dismantle racism, classism, transphobia, xenophobia, and ableism in their own spaces. This project is necessary because feeling disempowered, sad, heartbroken and judged aren’t often talked about in places of production: school, work, home. I tried to capture a larger audience while writing, illustrating and working through this piece of art. This project is my exploration of my own identity, although many diverse identities collaborated and helped me along iv the way. Try to read it with an open mind. Thank you <3

TABLE OF CONTENTS MANIFESTO

2-3

KEY TERMS

4-5

TRI-COOPS

6-14

SCHOOL

15-21

DOMES

22-38

THE PARKS

39-43

CONCLUSION

manifesto The graphic novel “Cistainability, Arqueertecture & Community Living” is the beginning of a larger project that investigates how even “sustainable” housing developments institutionalize racism, classism, inclusivity, and gendered violence. My research surrounding social patterns in living spaces has developed throughout my whole life. There are many epiphanies that have inspired this project’s thesis and are explored through its narrative and imagery. The goal for this book is to be able to communicate openly about oppression and difficult topics that are typically not prioritized and heavily ignored within the environmental design and environmental planning foci, academia and the professional world. This exploration brings together some new terms that let us step into an almost imaginative world that exists, but looks very different than the normative “landscape architecture” that standardized books have detailed, outlined and told us. I truly believe that there is potential to change your environment, but it takes a lot of questioning, a resilient community, sharing resources and forward planning.

Normative exercises in college education help prepare folks to assimilate into binaries, white spaces and accepted middle class identities. We do not choose to be othered from these spaces based off of our economic and class position, race, gender or ability. Defying these patterns are the tools that help students become planners, community organizers and resilient in order to survive. I’ve termed the phrase “Landscape Arqueertecture” as a welcoming way to invite all of the people that have felt shut out by racism, gendered violence, classism, and especially displacement from housing to begin to see a way to take back power without assimilating into a society that perpetuates those same.

what inspired this project? To introduce this graphic exploration, I want to talk a bit about the idea that learning about environments is life work. I grew up all around Los Angeles in many different environments, but one mode of oppression, besides the most obvious white supremacist culture that I was born into, was the housing crisis in Los Angeles. When I was a kid, my dad, sister and I lived a block away from the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, home to hundreds of people without housing in Los Angeles. The constant displacement and neglectful tactics from the city of Santa Monicaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s local government is in a direct partnership with the police state. Living in this cis-tem (hetero-patriarchal, classist system), I believed the idea that because we had housing that me as a kid living in an apartment and maybe another kid my age that lived on the promenade were completely different. I think highlighting this experience is important because it comes down to racism and recognizing that having inherent white privilege is a product of that. For instance, there was no recognition from the government or local schools to openly educate students about the colonial hxstory (hxstory is a gender neutral anti-colonial synonym, or herstory) of amerika (native America). No one said we are on stolen land or approached the issue from a larger perspective of societyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s failure of ethics. Why are the rich getting richer while the poor are chastised for being poor? Statistics and real life experiences related to race, class and gender in amerika have shaped this project heavily. Also, thinking and feeling through how to communicate oppression through art has been a powerful and rewarding exercise. 3

establishing key terms the definition of being characterized socially and culturally as male or female. upholding the male/ female gender binary in daily life as perceived by others (ie if you are perceived as male then your performance is to uphold the male gender). Specific sector of housing where members contribute equally in a community-based and community-run model, usually decisions will be made on consensus where each member holds a vote instead of a democratic model for decision-making. the study and practice of incorporating the built environment and landscape into political, social and cultural discourse. Landscape architecture is the design, development and implementation of bringing meaning to environments. the deconstruction of landscape as a binary-based environment. The introduction of critical, modern issues into the development and discourse of built environments. The ability to allocate resources that are based on equity, ethical, environmental, and economic systems. Sustainability is the belief that if all three “E’s” are carried out in thinking and acting, then resources and movements will continue for generations to come. The understanding that gender, race and class have to be at the forefront of sustainability movements. The prioritization of ethical issues into the green, environmental movement. The idea that masculinity and femininity define categories that fit along a heterosexual spectrum, which creates a restrictive frame for identities. A term denoting a gender that associates with the gender assigned at birth. AFAB and AMAB (assigned female/male at birth) are also used to denote someone’s birth roles. A term that alludes to the deconstruction of a gender binary that assigns a person with their birth gender. Transgendered individuals refer to people that identify with the opposite of their birth gender. Alluding to the deconstruction of a gender binary and allowing someone to identify with many or no genders and to understand gender as a fluid, constructed term that is a direct result of the colonization of native genders and identities and a way to enforce a patriarchal society where roles are gendered. The dislike, hatred and deliberate violence against womyn. The hatred, dislike, disgust and violence against womyn that identify as transgendered 4

The act of a cisgendered male to explain tasks. duties and methods of approach as a violent tactic to police womyn. A product of white supremacy. The lack of recognition that we are on stolen land when communicating ways to protect land, labor or performance. An example of this is the “Save the Domes” campaign.

The history of amerika. White Euro-amerikan people claiming territory while destructing all forms or cultural life and practice horugh the bloodshed of Native people. Reinforcing a gender construct in daily life through the policing of gender performance. A product of capitalism, the government and the powers that be to continually monitor and watch people. The tapping and targeting of underrepresented groups to limit mobility and expression. When white people represent, mock or perpetuate other identities through costumes, etc. Social, economic, environmental movements that work towards a more livable and less oppressive environment. Activism that target corporate, governmental, state and local practices that harm both people and their environments. The proximity of nuclear and power plans to communities. The idea that gay marraige only privileges folks who have the resources to contribute to a hetero-normative lifestyle while disregarding the disproportionate affects that policies have against trans womyn, especially black trans womyn who are murdered daily. A constructed idea based off of the color of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s skin that funnels into every institution and leads to large inequalities. The disparity between different economic groups and the divisive network that sets people apart based on wealth. At UC Davis, affordable housing is an implemented policy to ensure fair and ethical housing for all and gives opportunities to live and go to school if they are low income. A social construct that polices environments, a tactic to enforce and mask cistemic oppression. The disregard of white privilege as a way to ensure the safety of a predominantly white system. Ex: the police state The control of men in environments with little room for othered identities to share power. The violence brought on trans* identified folks and the attacks on non-gender conforming bodies through verbal and physical actions that suppress their ability to grow and thrive. Basing prejudice on someone based on their sexual identity. The violence and exclusion of people based on their ethnic identity and the misidentifying of non-white ethnicities. Racism is the foundation of amerika and the continued exclusion, imprisonment and violence towards people of color as a way to continue a white supremacist state. Everything in capitalism is connected through a series of domination of cisgendered men. Connecting our environments through a lens of dystopian environments. The intersectionality of expectations and performance of bodies and the environments that they must fit into.

UC Davis’ cooperative housing This project takes place at the University of California, Davis campus. The Tri-Cooperatives (Temporary Building (TB) 13, TB-14, and TB-15) is a part of on-campus housing at this point. The Tri-Cooperatives (the Coops) were not always on campus. Although now they stand next to Student Housing’s administrative building (which is under construction) as Davis Student Co-op (TB-13), Pierce Co-op (TB-14) and Agrarian Effort (TB 15). Davis Student Co-op and Agrarian Effort were built in 1923 and were located in Downtown Davis until they were moved to the central campus in 1951, off of what now intersects 3rd St. and the Activities and Recreation Center (built in 2004). They were established as “cooperative housing” in 1972. Pierce, formerly known as “Russia House” was established in 1968 after it’s move from the Tercero dorms (formerly “I” dorm) and then also joined the cooperatives, thus finalizing the Coops (1972). Throughout the years, the Coops have struggled to remain a part of Student Housing. In 2009, the Coops underwent a large transition to become ADA visitable, and DSC now has a full ADA accessible ramp on the south end of the house after taking out a hefty loan (app. $200,000). This move was catalyzed by Student Housing threatening to close down the house if they did not adhere to ADA guidelines. Additionally, the houses have been under the changing agenda of Student Housing as they prioritize market-value, mixed use housing into their strategies for redevelopment for the campus. Economically, the Tri-Coops have been working towards self-sufficiency apart from the base rent that goes towards Student Housing each month. These values ensure low-rent for it’s members. Since the Tri-Coops adhere to cooperative values, each member of each house contributes equal rent to subsidize the cost of board, food and living. With the loans from maintenance in-house and the ADA ramp, rent has increased dramatically since 2009 at the Coops. The houses are almost 100 years old and have gone through extensive walkthroughs by engineers, staff and maintenance from the university, therefore rent increases each year as the budget is reassessed and loans increase interest. Economic stability in cooperative housing in general isn’t as stable as a fixed apartment, per say because the numbers in each house, needs and necessities fluctuate as different members live there each quarter. 6

political & cultural identity: tri co-ops Political and cultural representation at the Tri-Coops are a part of its woven identity. Davis community support has been at the forefront of the Tri-Coops activism and political activity. Because of threats to close down both Davis Student Co-op (2009) and the Domes (2011), an insurgence of community support both from former residents, community members from all scales and the campus community helped to not only dismiss those threats but strengthen the political identity of the Tri-Coops. Solidarity with political movements on and off of the UC Davis campus have established a long-term political consciousness at the Tri-Coops, and members have worked towards equality in multiple facets of society, from agricultural and environmental justice to social and political freedom worldwide. The cultural makeup of the coops relates to the heart of why this project has to happen. Historically, the UC Davis population has seen a very small percentage of POC (people of color) not only admitted into the university but also living in community-based living spaces. In order to look at the cultural and political hxstory of this site itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important to look at a larger cis-temic oppression of people of color on the campus and relate that to the sometimes idyllic nature of cooperative living, and to question how freedom plays a part of our everyday landscapes through narrative-based research.

the tri-cooperatives site #1 gender, race & class narratives

Being trans and queer in a living space can be contaminated by the priorities of the residents to ensure production and efficiency enforced by the community. In a cooperative community, a members’ daily struggle to transition will take less priority than the remaining members’ need to fix their new road bikes. landscape emits energy, just don’t know whether to take identities out of the landscape and keep them inside or to till identities into the ground and let them outside of our control. IS THERE ANOTHER OPTION???

The tri-coops on campus are a place to harbor different sexual and gendered identities, but the houses struggle to include non-white racial and ethnic identities. The university only accepts 3% Black/ African American population each year.

The tokenization of people of color and trans people of color (QPOC/ QTPOC/ POC) is a problem within the tri-coops as well because although the community wants to prioritize a non-white hegemonic group, the few POC that do eventually live here often feel alienated and separate from the group and often donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel as if they can share their culture at home.

On a longer than usual, windy day in the growing town of Davis, CA, the air cut small cold hits as the bikers made their daily routines, no one really seeing each other. The silence, as Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve said this before, is more of a riot than any large scale political movement in Davis. Because it is cistained, it has validity, it is undeniably right there all of the time, and it is cistained only by the control that men have over it and the control that the government and the university administrators have over it. These people these richer folks watch students give arms and legs, severing every freedom that they thought was theirs to the powers, and the breath is stolen from their and the land is stolen for a new building or a new grassy area from the indigenous breaths that once had a hold on this land.

The Patwin-Wintu people farmed this land over the last millennia, now to only be disregarded in modern technology as a school erupts onto the map, taking with it the voices, here we have cistained silence. The White Colonizers keep talking talking talking walking walking walking how am I any different? A field is only a series of pathetic gestures to cover up colonization these days. 11

It goes like this: You went from being my friend to being someone who I have to focus on educating all the time. Your true identity showed as a cis hetero white patriarch that you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really want to engage with POC and you arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t an ally, but a perpetrator of appropriation.

Cultural appropriation has a large part to do with the lack of retention that affordable and low-income cooperatives at the UC Davis campus experience. Once a white person asserts their privilege and begins to generalize a type of person, culture, ethnicity, race, they begin to act and are perceived differently. 12

community monster (post incident)

community member (pre incident)

There is constant surveillance when it comes to Student Housing. When will the monitoring and imposed responsibilities that are transparently oppressive begin to affect the social movements within the tri-cooperatives? As you walk through these gardens, do you feel watched? Is there a sense of freedom or does that constant looking or misunderstood geography pulse and grow like a weed?

social construction: education nature happiness health peace There are socially constructed features that live in the tri-coop gardens. With the outside influence, the waves of strangers that may be willing to spend the amount of money it takes to get a â&#x20AC;&#x153;goodâ&#x20AC;? education, the coops grow into an object instead of a growing idea.

connecting on campus housing with the academic environment

THERE ARE TOO MANY DAYS IN THIS PROGRAM WHERE I CAN FEEL THE EYES ON ME AS I WAIT TO CHOOSE EVEN WHICH BATHROOM I SHOULD USE. IF YOU MAKE GENDER NEUTRAL BATHROOMS IT WILL FIX AN IMMEDIATE PROBLEM. IF YOU LOOK AT YOUR ENVIRONMENT AS A STARTING POINT FOR A REVOLUTION, THE BATHROOM ISSUE WILL BE A PART OF A LONGER CONVERSATION OF DIVERSITY AND INTERNALIZED TRANSPHOBIA IN THE CLASSROOM.

Hxstory of The Domes

The Domes at Baggins End were built in Fall 1972 by an Engineering class at UC Davis, and with the help of student volunteers and the supervision of Doug Ryen. The Domes were located on a barren piece of land without any plantings, trees or grass. Student volunteers helped to build the Domes but also students designed each dome individually. The Domes now are technically off-campus, divided by Russell Blvd., a 4-lane commuter street with concrete medians. When entering the Domes, it is overgrown with weeds and lined with trees both fruiting and non-fruiting. The Domes population is 26 Â˝ people, clearly written in faded paint on a sign at the south entrance (13 occupied Domes excluding Dome 7, an administrative/ office dome). The Domes are currently represented under Solar Community Housing Association (SCHA) and although residents pay rent to SCHA, the university has technical sovereignty over the property. Residents are all students and although they share dinners 4 times a week, they must pay for food on their own budget. Alternatively, the Domes are still a low-income housing opportunity for students since rent is only $396.00 a month, far below the projected market-rate for a single room in Davis. The current political and cultural climate at the Domes varies every quarter and year with the high turnover rate of the residents. Back in 2011, the Domes were threatened to close and there was a large community design and build process that, with grants and crowdsourced funding, aided in the projects that the Domes needed to finish in order to bring them up to code and ADA visible. Each dome has a loft which are currently not ADA-accessible, but Dome 7 has a large ramp that was built during the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Save the Domesâ&#x20AC;? campaign. The Domes are an autonomous community, as the Tri-Coops strive to be, in that the residents make a majority of the decisions for what will happen with the yearly budget, decisions and on the property. Racially, the Domes historically have presented itself as a cis-White dominated space. The Domes strive for being an open space that politically advocates against police brutality, and for marginalized groups to be represented and included in the community. 22

a discussion of institutionalization, the hetero- patriarchy and the dysptopian nature complex of the domes The Domes are institutionalized by Student Housing and the University of California, Davis. There is an image that UC Davis upholds as they market the Domes. This includes the idyllic painting that they paint of a diverse, environmental communal experience. This is problematic because it tokenizes POC and QTPOC to fit into a model of white supremacy and they must assimilate to the notion of nature and cistainability as it has been institutionalized by huge environmentally and socially destructive devices. A hetero- patriarchy also controls many aspects of the Domes with little room to include non-gender conforming people in the processes. Ways that this is executed is through the space that cisgendered men take up at the Domes and the mansplaining tactical language used directly to womyn to ensure a productive space. Nature is a constantly constructed term in cistainable living housing. There is no active recognition that we are on stolen land and that men do not have to teach us how to rape the land ethically. This nature complex comes from the way that people view the environment as always open to them. If people were to see their environments as something that is constantly being oppressed then there may be a realistic shift in this community. This chapter outlines the ways that the Domes were perceived when I first moved in and the race, class and gender roles that exist in this environment. There are roles that people uphold that become invisible through the assimilation tactics to adhere to a male-dominated cistem and the happy idea of nature. 23

the domes site #2 race, gender, & class narratives 24

Dismantling the patriarchy at the Domes

Power works in a series, a stepping ladder, hierarchy, but what if it were a web instead of a path of reinforced oppression?

Our environment was designed for: someone else. This series of the man in nature with his power tools, his voice, his

Ideas here at the Domes spread in repetition and the normativity of conversation extends beyond the campus, this conversation of finding strength away from a patriarchal definition of sturdy, grounded becomes a product of gender binaries concretely stuck among the weeds. We try to convince an already disempowered womyn to feel safe as her male community members grapple to feel as if they can start to truly understand oppression.

Who wants to feel comfortable vs. who needs to? Why are we weaker? You didn’t approach this the right way again? You, the man, are shirtless again. Someone works for 8 hours with the male cohort while another stares so strong into a reflective mirror. Both may break soon. Designing within the environment is like saying how patriarchal speech can be offensive and reworking the idea of work. Transforming physical spaces to emotional spaces

It comes in waves. The Earth’s cracked ground is all that is left. If I fall in these heels I am no longer contributing. If I put on pants I lose my identity. And then what?

chiseled body, teaching a womyn, a person of color how to tame and domesticate the weed.

Why do we feel so lost in this landscape? the

It’s 10 pm on a Monday night and the word efficient is synonymous with good. The overused word guy is a tool as hollow as the shovel that plummets this soil.

I wish I could say the things that upset me: like that time when you shut me out and told me I was wrong for thinking a certain way.

The good gay vs. the rebel queer. We both cooked for the weekly meals. We both felt threatened by the story about love & marraige. We both have responsibilities. Why are you validated while I am considered lazy?

dominance is real

THE SUN THE SUN

THE SON

Wherever we go, gender is as constructed as the $400 million new buildings on campus or the arbitrary bathroom signs that indicate: IF YOU ARE WEARING PANTS YOU ARE A MAN AND HAVE MALEGENITALIA IF YOU ARE WEARING A DRESS YOU ARE A WOMAN FEMALE GENITALIA In our cistem of education, we all hold different amounts of weight and privilege be it racial, economic, environmental or gendered. Exploring weight as gender performance is vital to understanding our own environmentla and social constraints.

28 Development allows for globalization to project a series of grides on landscapes. Social constructs that are institutionalized by the “liberal, free” travel of economics affects the self in many ways.

Sometimes I feel I am the development, that the constructions imposed on my body is a product of development. “I hold weights, too, that may not be visible to the outside world,” rings a conversation I’ve had at the cooperatives on campus.

gender + acceptance

what have you had to overcome?

Are you queer/ transpohobic? Homophobic?

Even if you connect with values in the community, you are not held close by the community.

1. You will feel awkward when they are happy 900% of the time.

“I’ve grown so much” pattern (lived here for 3 years)

2. Your idea of nature will become more complex than a hetero cistem can process.

vs.

3. You will need safer words, safer communities, safer spaces. 4. Cats will become your family meow.

“I’ve felt oppression and brought it up at meeting” (lived here for 3 years)

MANSPLAINING = A TERM USED WHEN TYPICALLY A CIS// GENDERED MAN ATTEMPTS TO EXPLAIN TO A NON CIS// GENDERED MAN (WOMYN, TRANS* MEN, ETC) HOW TO DO SOMETHING IN A WAY THAT ENFORCES A PATRIARCHY, A GENDER BINARY AND AN UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF POWER. NOW TELL ME BOYS, DID YOU KNOW THAT?

I DON’T NEED TO BE SHOWN WHY THE WAY I DID SOMETHING WASN’T RIGHT BECAUSE YOU MAYBE HAD A HUNCH THAT I DIDN’T HAVE THE RIGHT PROCESS. WE SEE THIS ALL OF THE TIME IN THE HIPPIE PERMACULTURE ECO MOVEMENT, MEN DOING THINGS AND SHOWING US HOW TO BE PRODUCTIVE BECAUSE OF THEIR PRECONCEIVED MICROAGRESSIONS TOWARDS GENDER. INSTEAD, I WILL TAKE MY KNOWLEDGE AND RISE ABOVE YOUR PATRIARCHY IN MY OWN WAYS.

white dome hard, crackened, silent shell... anger!!! when is the fear not valid? where is home?

They arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a place for queer people anymore. black dome I remember having this conversation with another queer person at the co-ops. He said that they are a place for assimilation and homogeneity. We need to stay together as queer and trans* people because the â&#x20AC;&#x153;cis-temâ&#x20AC;? is breaking our bonds apart and making it harder for us to be resilient. They deploy the management of bodies in this space according to the hetero patriarchal normative lifestyle.

E P I P H A N Y !

The hxstory of the co-ops are protected by assimilation. And the tokenization of certain types of people into the community To fit the balanced, nonviolent, working institutionalized image. 31

The campus is divided into different units and the idea of a â&#x20AC;&#x153;safe spaceâ&#x20AC;? canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exist as the policed spaces continue to grow. I saw the mobility go from bikes to mini-vans in two years. We are on watch and under constant monitoring. The heights of the bushes that once provided shade for the campus and also environmental stability are now gone. At Orchard Park Family and Student Housing, a group of buildings completely surrounded by campus 32 public spaces, including a shopping mall and an arboretum trail, who will protect this diverse community? Who will police it?

PROMPT: WHO FITS INTO THE ENVIRONMENT AT YOUR CAMPUS? WHO 33 ISN’T CONSIDERED? WILL YOU FIT IN? DO YOU WANT TO?

WHEN WILL THERE BE ENOUGH RESOURCES AND TIMES TO APPRECIATE UNDERREPRESENTED STUDENTS/ FAMILIES @ UCD?

DISCONNECTED/ CISCONNECTED AND FAILING: A NEW COMMUNITY DESIGN FOR SUCCESS. Great! You have made it to the top and instead of taking your power and 35 leaving none behind, your community contributions become the resources that everyone has access too. Good work.

I feel like Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m melting into the cis-tem. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think my identities will show. I will become an object and they will laugh at me and I will be bashed against. I wanted to peel off the layers of myself in this drawing for the sincerity of this experi(ience)ment. If Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m learning, I should learn within my own body.

36 My physical world is making me melt and out comes cistainability

cistainability cistainability cistainability cistainability cistainabil...

The production that goes into manufacturing our landscapes continues to divide the community. As the Domes became a part of Solar Community Housing Association (SCHA) in 2011, people declared the Domes as “saved.” The white-savior complex that made that happen didn’t at all confront the way that the university trerats it’s workers elsewhere and I And so we continue to look at our landscapes with a utopic lens, without wonder now if this space is as in much need questioning what type of colonization work led us to this environment. to be saved as some of the other classist and We instead tokenize our participants of the cistainability movement to fit racially exclusive environments at UC Davis. 37

in just enough to be hidden, while invisibilizing the hardships it takes for othered bodies to enter in the first place.

even if there is a cistainable ecological washer and dryer that simultaneously waters fruit trees

this is stolen land, this is still stolen land

community design: orchard park and solano park apartments Orchard and Solano Park were built in the 1950s as the first off-campus affordable graduate student housing opportunities and later in the 1990’s developed more into graduate and undergraduate student housing, along with graduate family student housing. Historically, these spaces have been affordable for families and a place of community gathering. There is a large international student population in Solano and previously in Orchard Park (before it’s closure in Fall 2014). The project goals are to find out more about how culturally and politically these spaces have supported themselves and what types of struggles have been masked when attempting to fight for long-term low-income housing for students. In Winter 2015 I took a landscape arqueertecture class called “Community Design and Participation” under the guidance of Professor Sheryl-Ann Simpson. In this class we looked at the social, cultural, environmental and economic practices that are used to work with communities, especially housing and educational communities that have growing pressures due to gentrification, redevelopment and loss of support from the powers that be. The communities that I focused on were Orchard Park Apartments and Solano Park Apartments. This community- based class was crucial to my research because it allowed me to open up my scope of low-income, affordable housing and look critically at how student cooperatives differ from graduate student and family housing off campus. Orchard Park’s closing in 2011 due to redevelopment displaced all of its residents, but many were forcibly moved to Solano Park. We heard many testimonials about the capitalist ventures from the university to hike up prices for families and students because they were investing in third party larger private developers. The opposition from the community halted the redevelopment for Solano Park, which is important to look at the resiliency of that current space. The community practices were not focused as much on the greenwashing of sustianability because they were now looking at how underrepresentation takes effect on housing and how vulnerable populations are more easily targeted than richer, incoming middle-class students. The housing market as seen from these folks’ stories does not really exist. It is a way to maneuver the university to privatize while capitalizing on a ficticious need of their students. The administration feels comfortable putting a marketing strategy on the units where people live and have to raise their children and struggle to make ends meet. If you can’t afford to live, there is no way that a community’s environment is a priority. 39

family and student housing: greening of affordable housing; race class and gender issues There arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t as many resources for families with graduate students at UC Davis. Families have to fight for everything from affordable daycare to having their spouseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recognized by housing and the administration. Without access to information, working (primarily mothers) folks have to do twice the work to survive. If there were more resources for affordibility at UC Davis then graduate students with families would be able to get in and out of their masters and phD programs faster. It is also hard for non-gender conforming students, whether genderqueer or trans* to have access to mental health resources. The basics are only covered through housing. The class issue at Orchard and Solano Park struck me as a tactic for the administration to capitalize on multicultural identities without understanding where their residentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; backgrounds connect or dysconnect from the university. There is not a lot of respect for non-white hegemonic religious or cultural practices. How are families supposed to raise their children in spaces that suppress their identities? This section illustrates an outline of the current aspects of Orchard and Solano Park and then reinvisions a space for more inclusivity and freedom of its residents, instead of continually oppressing folks of color and families of color. 40

current current characteristics characteristics of of orchard orchard park park housing housing

Affordable Affordability Housing

Multi-Cultural

Families & Grad Students Modest

Sharing Stuff Play Areas

Self Governed

Active/ Politi-

Open Space Transitional & 41 Long Term

Exploratory Map of Orchard Park Apartments as a Queer Family & Student Housing

Queer Family/ Student Housing Process: A Rationale for Participatory Community Design The idea of designing a completely queer/trans/POC inclusive space sparked from the reality that because Orchard Park is closed, gated and surveillanced daily, we need to explore how that space can be perceived and imagined differently for the future. Stable housing is an unfortunate reality of the capitalist-centric developmentality employed by the highly paid officers and administrators at UC Davis. They do not want POC in their housing, they do not care about the intersectionality of affordable housing to race, class and gender cistemic issues. We need to push the boundaries of our own design approaches in order to reach a struggling population of students and families that barely have access to higher education or even supportive or affordable places to live. I changed the name of the streets to be “Stolen Land” and “Still Stolen Land” to recognize indigenous hxstory and never forget the blood that was shed to make this university enter into existence.

Therefore, we need to design for these identities (which is by far not a complete list of identities seeking resources at this institution, but it’s a start:

Race/Queer/Gender Inclusive: Queer Home Ability is a Construct Labor Safe Space Survivors of Gendered* & Racial Violence Broken Hearts/ Uside Down Rainbow House (aka BHUDRH aka butter) No More Class Politics (not hippy) New Magic Family House Palestine Black Lives Matter Free All Political Prisoners Housing that Prioritizes Indigenous Health, Retention, Culture & Resource Allocation We Are Gender Non-Conforming

Organizational Work:

Communications/ Resource Center Cop Watch Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) Cut the 1% Musical/ Radical Theory Body Positive Another Community Art Collective All Cops Are Bastards (ACAB) National Lawyers Guild (NLG) Environmental Justice Now Cultural Workers’ Space Freedom Fighters

Further Needs:

Library: QTPOC, Zines, Computers, Paolo Freire Center for Learning Free Rent Vending Machine No Fence Public Art More Public Murals “The Porch” Self Served Bagels, Coffee & Cigzzz Radical Signs Free Parking Laundy (x2) 43 Office

In conclusion, there are many parts that contribute to the race, gender and class issues within the spectrum of cistainability, affordable housing and low-income housing. These chapters outline the narrative sequences of both looking critically at those experiences, and finally envision a queer-friendly housing design that confronts some of the access to resources that QTPOC, POC and other marginalized identities experience daily at the University of California, Davis. Hope you enjoyed the book and have a great day!