Architecture and the Right to Housing

The right to housing—globally and in Canada—is a political, legal and economic issue. It is also an architectural one. What does the right to housing mean in practice? How can designers contribute? Join a distinguished panel of housing experts, moderated by the Daniels Faculty's Karen Kubey, as they discuss these urgent questions and examine promising examples, laying the groundwork for ways forward.

Panelists: A human rights lawyer and former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing, Leilani Farha is Global Director of The Shift, an international advocacy agency combating housing financialization while upholding human rights. Paul Karakusevic is a founding partner at Karakusevic Carson, an award-winning architecture firm at the forefront of public housing design across the UK; his practice is also working in Toronto on the masterplan for the final phases of the Regent Park & Alexandra Park Estates for Toronto Community Housing.

Moderator: An urbanist specializing in housing design and social justice, Karen Kubey has been an Assistant Professor at the Daniels Faculty since 2023. The editor of Housing as Intervention: Architecture towards Social Equity (Architectural Design, 2018), she served as the first executive director of the Institute for Public Architecture and convenes the American Institute of Architects Right-to-Housing Working Group.

This event is generously supported by the Irving Grossman Fund in Affordable Housing.

This event is part of the Daniels Faculty's Winter 2024 Public Program.