Architecture has long struggled with the contradiction of being both a profoundly social art and a profession structured by exclusivity. The tools, language, and systems of design have historically been confined to experts—architects, planners, engineers—rendering most people spectators in shaping the spaces they inhabit. Against this backdrop, the practices of self-build and repair emerge as deeply political acts: they offer people the means to re-engage with the making of their environments, to reclaim agency over their living conditions, and to reframe architecture as a participatory and empowering process.
reflections
Housing has long stood at the intersection of architecture and justice. It is where questions of equity, access, and dignity become spatially and materially realized—or denied. In the UG2 studio, students have approached housing not as a finished object to be designed anew, but as a dynamic, living system that is constantly under repair: socially, materially, and infrastructurally. Within this framework, the home is not an architectural product but a process—a site of ongoing adaptation, negotiation, and care.
The projects presented in this publication have cultivated a diverse and evolving suite of tools and methods tailored to reparative practice. These approaches are not additive to the architectural process—they are central to it. Rooted in UG2’s commitment to hands-on experimentation, collaboration, and critical reflection, these tools allow students to confront repair as both a technical and socio-spatial act.
Architecture has long struggled with the contradiction of being both a profoundly social art and a profession structured by exclusivity. The tools, language, and systems of design have historically been confined to experts—architects, planners, engineers—rendering most people spectators in shaping the spaces they inhabit. Against this backdrop, the practices of self-build and repair emerge as deeply political acts: they offer people the means to re-engage with the making of their environments, to reclaim agency over their living conditions, and to reframe architecture as a participatory and empowering process.
Housing has long stood at the intersection of architecture and justice. It is where questions of equity, access, and dignity become spatially and materially realized—or denied. In the UG2 studio, students have approached housing not as a finished object to be designed anew, but as a dynamic, living system that is constantly under repair: socially, materially, and infrastructurally. Within this framework, the home is not an architectural product but a process—a site of ongoing adaptation, negotiation, and care.
The projects presented in this publication have cultivated a diverse and evolving suite of tools and methods tailored to reparative practice. These approaches are not additive to the architectural process—they are central to it. Rooted in UG2’s commitment to hands-on experimentation, collaboration, and critical reflection, these tools allow students to confront repair as both a technical and socio-spatial act.
reflections