Chicago Hip Hop Architecture Camp. Image by M.O.D Media Productions

What If Hip Hop Can Make Architecture and Planning Better?

November 11, 2018

In Feb. 2017, the city of Madison, Wis., was developing its comprehensive plan. Michael Ford noticed that the plan, which projects 20 years into the future, had no input from young people.

“You have these planning meetings and it’s the same people in the room,” says Ford. “We were looking 20 years into the future, we have young people who are going to inherit that plan while they are in their prime. They should be at the table talking about it.”

So he pitched the office of Mayor Paul Soglin. The way that the meetings were set up right now, he told the mayor’s office, it’s not interesting to young people. But he had a “crazy idea to do something with hip-hop.”

Michael Ford's SuperSoul Sunday Short Film by Oprah Winfrey Network

October 26, 2018

"It's about more than just a building. It's about the people, the community and literally making something out of nothing. The goal for us is not only to get more students of color invested in those careers but also to reimagine themselves –and reimagine what their world can look like."

In this SuperSoul Short Film presented by American Family Insurance, watch how Mike Ford is fusing his passions of hip-hop music and architecture to inspire young people of color to think critically and dream fearlessly about their neighborhoods and their communities.
To learn how you can pursue and protect your dreams, visit www.amfam.com
Read more: http://www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/the-hip-hop-architect#ixzz5V4CDcgGY

TINKERING AROUND Christian Adams, 9, uses the design program Tinkercad to imagine a new city ROLANDA MASSEY—HIP HOP ARCHITECTURE

Time Magazine Covers The Hip Hop Architecture Camp "Building to the Beat"

October 26, 2018

When Mike Ford was a kid, he dreamed of being a car designer. But when he was 11, things changed. That’s when he went to a car-design program and ended up learning about architecture instead.

“As a youngster, I was lucky enough to have some conversations with the people running that summer program,” he told TIME for Kids. Talking with designers there sparked Ford’s interest in architecture. He went on to pursue it as a career.

Now Ford hopes to spark the same interest in other young people. Last year, he launched his own architecture program for kids ages 10 to 17. But his program has an unexpected twist. Campers base their designs on hip-hop lyrics. (Read on to learn how this works.)

Houston Hip Hop Architecture Camp participant uses Autodesk Tinkercad.

CNET: Autodesk and The Hip Hop Architecture Camp Seeks to Reach Future Architects Through Hip Hop

September 4, 2018

Take architecture. Just 4 percent of architects are black and only 0.3 percent are black women, according to the American Institute of Architects.

Autodesk, which makes computer aided design software (CAD) used in many industries including architecture, hopes to start changing that by sponsoring Hip Hop Architecture Camp. The traveling camp will more than double the number of cities to 17 it visits this spring and summer, in the second year of the program, Autodesk said Thursday

The Bronx Hip Hop Architecture Camp
Photo by M.O.D. Media Photography

In the Bronx, a hip-hop architecture camp teaches students about creative placemaking

August 22, 2018

"Perhaps moreso than any other genre of music, hip-hop is shaped by its environment. The genre’s origins date back to one sweaty summer night in the Bronx in 1973, when DJ Kool Herc debuted a new style of spinning records at his sister’s back-to-school party. And as the style became more popular and took off, one thing linked the artists who shaped it: they were often influenced by what they saw in their own neighborhoods.

For example, in Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s 1982 hit “The Message,” the group raps about its South Bronx home: “Broken glass everywhere / People pissing on the stairs, you know they just don’t care / I can’t take the smell, can’t take the noise / Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice.”