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.”

The rapper Chino XL teaching students at Hip-Hop Architecture Camp.
Photo by M.O.D. Media Productions.

Rolling Stone Magazine Features The Hip Hop Architecture Camp

June 25, 2018

The Hip Hop Architecture Camp was featured in Rolling Stone Magazine!

How Bad Urban Planning Led to The Birth Of A Billion Doallar Genre

September 19, 2016

"Life in the so-called inner city has always been a major theme in hip-hop. From the desolate state of the Bronx Projects described in Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” to the poor conditions in parts of Brooklyn and Queens recounted by artists like Jay Z, Biggie, and Nas, rappers have used their music to offer a glimpse into urban spaces across the United States. For decades, they’ve used verses and hooks to allude to the relationship between hip-hop and architecture — overcrowded, dilapidated towers have been the backdrop of the genre since its inception. But that relationship is more significant than it appears to be, says designer Mike Ford, whose pioneering research in the field of hip-hop-inspired architecture has earned him a fitting sobriquet: The Hip-Hop Architect. "

Hip Hop As Modernism's Post Occupancy Report:Part 2

June 28, 2015

Hip Hop has established itself as a gravitas culture that crosses borders of race, ethnicity, class, religion and professions. Members of the hip hop generation carry the residue of the culture into all spaces they inhabit and their individual works are seasoned with its’ flavor. As professionals continue to argue the academic validity of hip hop and disseminate the social significance of rap, it is time architectural professionals learn the benefit the culture provides to its’ practitioners.

The Bronx Recognized As “Place of Invention” At Upcoming Smithsonian Exhibit

March 21, 2015

It’s not often that the Bronx is mentioned in the same breath as Hollywood and Silicon Valley. But an exhibit being planned at the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center in Washington, D.C. will pay homage to these areas and others as “hot spots” of innovation