Aneesha Dharwadker, AIA

Projects

Design & Colonialism

Between the 16th and 20th centuries, colonialism impacted nearly 85% of planet. Despite processes of administrative decolonization, we continue to live with the effects of colonialism through imbalances in both epistemologies and the built environment—in other words, how we structure knowledge about history and “othering” directly impacts how we build and occupy space. A series of publications addresses both how we teach about colonialism in a design classroom and how we critique its consequences in the built environment:

• Dharwadker, Aneesha. “Dystopia’s Ghost,” Places Journal (2022).
• Dharwadker, Aneesha. “A Reading List for the End of Architecture,” Dialectic VII: Architecture and Citizenship—Decolonizing Architectural Pedagogy (2019): 41-48.
• “Native Citizenship,” Form N-X00: New Forms for Citizenship (2018)

Design & Public Health

The recent opioid abuse epidemic and COVID pandemic have redefined our collective relationship to public health in the U.S. Dharwadker’s research here centers design as a primary actor in what might otherwise be considered an epidemiological problem. This set of projects seeks to introduce design discourse into a larger social narrative, offering design-based ideas and methods for mitigating its most pressing problems.

In Spring 2018, Dharwadker taught a design studio in landscape architecture on this topic titled “Landscapes of Dependence.” The course culminated in the publication of a website, “The Declaration of Dependence,” which was both a manifesto and an archive of design research. This studio was also featured in Landscape Architecture Magazine. In 2019, Dharwadker received a grant from the University of Illinois Campus Research Board to explore relationships between Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (infant opioid withdrawal) and the architecture of neonatal intensive care units in rural Illinois. In 2020, her design for a methadone clinic and therapy center in Venice, CA was selected for the jury shortlist in the Emotions, Architecture, Opioids international ideas competition.

“Design for Covid-19: Rethinking an American Campus and the Dilemma of the Second Wave” (The Plan Journal, 2022) presents work from a Fall 2020 graduate studio that explored how the Urbana-Champaign campus could adapt to the specifics of COVID-era social distancing. From the materiality of the ground plane to the layout of campus residences, the essay and student projects presented alongside reimagine the campus at the scales of the site, building, and dorm room.

Design & Literacy

This set of projects carried out through Chicago Design Office place architecture in direct dialogue with literacy, in both an academic sense and a cultural one. Crossing the Skyline­, a speculative proposal for downtown Chicago, links the Harold Washington Library and the Metropolitan Correctional Center with a library annex. This proposal establishes a blurred zone between the public and the imprisoned where the primary activity is reading. While it is not intended to be a literal construction, it deploys architecture critically to generate new questions about the role, location, and physical form of prisons, as well as the positive role reading and writing can play in rehabilitation and reentry.

Built and ongoing projects on this topic include the FirstFollowers Learning Lab in Champaign, a design-build renovation that supports individuals with community reentry. The Learning Lab is used as a community center for shared meals, job training, construction tutorials, and chess lessons, and provides access to a computer lab for scholars enrolled in FirstFollowers’ GoMAD program. The Imagination Station, part of the 2022 Chicago Sukkah Design Festival, provides a reading and cultural literacy pavilion for Men Making A Difference, a children-focused non-profit in North Lawndale, Chicago.