Akima Brackeen

Akima Brackeen

Akima is an educator, designer and researcher dedicated to promoting justice within the built environment. She is an Assistant Professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Community Design Director at Architecture for Public Benefit,  and a member of the leadership team for the Equity in Architecture Education Consortium (EAEC). Her research focuses on water access and challenging racial perceptions and values of waterscapes aiming to transform engagement with contested sites through speculative interventions, narrative generation and community activations. 

Previously, she worked on multi-family affordable housing projects in the office of David Baker Architects in San Francisco, California, and collaborated on a proposal for an art education center at MASS Design in Kigali, Rwanda. She was the inaugural Rowe Fellow at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago, where she taught undergraduate housing studios and a led a seminar course that analyze aquatic milieu, history, and imaginaries by translating and spatializing Black narratives from  music and literature. Akima consistently leverages design, research and teaching to serve as advocate for marginalized communities, and collaborate with organizations that strive to positively impact the community.