Camp facilitator Phil Robie demonstrates some design details.
KARA HAYES SMITH
The Hip Hop Architecture Camp
On a mild afternoon in Washington, D.C., a makeshift stage has formed in the entryway of the District Architecture Center. Middle-schooler Iyana Benjamin adjusts the arms of her gold-rimmed, circular glasses from beneath a gray beanie and smiles as she looks up from her notebook and out to a few rows of folding chairs, accommodating nine other kids and a few adults. A beat emanating from a nearby laptop breaks the silence, and Benjamin begins to rap. She raps in a matter-of-fact yet firm tone on topics that are well beyond her years, from the swift gentrification of her neighborhood to the overshadowed African American architectswho first built it.
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I’m happy to announce that I am one of “Grist 50 Fixers”. I was selected from over 1000 creatives who were nominated by peers. “Each year, the environmental news site Grist makes a list of 50 innovators working on creative and ambitious solutions to challenges like climate change. “There’s a lot of bad news these days, and I think we’re really intentionally trying to tell stories about what’s possible,” says Andrew Simon, director of content at Grist. Here are a handful of the “fixers” in this year’s edition of the Grist 50”
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Chicago Hip Hop Architecture Camp. Image by M.O.D Media Productions
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.”
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TINKERING AROUND Christian Adams, 9, uses the design program Tinkercad to imagine a new city ROLANDA MASSEY—HIP HOP ARCHITECTURE
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.)
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Houston Hip Hop Architecture Camp participant uses Autodesk Tinkercad.
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
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The Bronx Hip Hop Architecture Camp
Photo by M.O.D. Media Photography
"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.”
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Before the competition, the students had plenty of questions for Chingy. They wanted to know what it was like to attend the BET Awards. They were curious as to inspired him to make music. They wanted to know how old he was when he first started performing. After being inspired by Michael Jackson, Chingy was 12 years old when he started pursuing a career in music – the same age as several of the camp members."
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The Los Angeles Hip Hop Architecture Camp. Photo by Josh Berry
Artist Nikki Jean and Michael Ford appeared NPR’s “Here and Now” with host Robyn Young to discuss The Hip Hop Architecture Camp, The 2018 Hip Hop Architecture Design Cypher, our upcoming trip to Kenya, and Nikki’s new single “Mr Clean” featuring Lupe Fiasco.
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The Hip Hop Architecture Design Cypher
Photo by: Josh Berry
Wednesday, February 21, 2018: The Hip Hop Architecture Design Cypher organized by Michael Ford at Autodesk's Pier 9 in San Francisco had top hip hop lyricists join with the nations top young architects, designers and technology creators to explore the juxtaposition of architecture and hip hop! The Hip Hop Architecture Design Cypher was a three day event, challenging participants to explore the cultural implications of architecture in the built environment through the lens of Hip Hop Culture. Focusing on the intersection of theory and practice, participants explore hip hop as a revolutionary approach to understanding, conceiving, and generating architecture for a just city. Artist included Lupe Fiasco, Nikki Jean, Daylyt, ChinoXL, and TRP. The team of architects included, Eryk Christian, Ingrid Gonzalez, Jason Pugh, Pascale Sablan, Bryan C Lee Jr., Kouyate Toure and University of Detroit Mercy architecture student Phillip Robie.
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The rapper Chino XL teaching students at Hip-Hop Architecture Camp.
Photo by M.O.D. Media Productions.
The Hip Hop Architecture Camp was featured in Rolling Stone Magazine!
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About 2 percent of architects in the U.S. are African-American. That’s a statistic Michael Ford wants to change by using Hip Hop to inspire young people to think of new ways to solve urban development problems that segregate and marginalize low-income communities.
In the St. Louis region, the free program will begin July 30 at the Natural Bridge Branch of the St. Louis County Library. Click here to register.
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The Hip Hop Architecture Camp and one of our 2017 Austin Texas participants, Brianna White, was featured in Black Girl Nerds. As co-founder of the Urban Arts Collective, I have had the opportunity to work on many inspiring projects that involve bringing S.T.E.A.M. (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) education to individuals through the influence of hip-hop. I’ve spoken at SXSW on the topic numerous times and even helped design the Universal Hip Hop Museum, with input from local students and the Bronx community. Yet last year through my work with Autodesk, I kicked-off one of my proudest collaborations yet: The Hip Hop Architecture Camps.
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The Hip Hop Architecture Camp in Los Angeles. Photo by Josh Berry
Highland Park native Michael Ford has made a career out of his two seemingly unconnected passions: hip-hop and architecture. But listen to him talk and the two are obviously intertwined — it was the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier's invention of the idea of modern housing projects that gave rise to 1520 Sedgwick Ave. in the Bronx, and 1520 Sedgwick Ave. gave rise to hip-hop.
After giving a traveling lecture series and exhibition series on the interconnectedness of hip-hop and architecture, Ford will soon bring his latest project to Detroit. Hip Hop Architecture Camp is a weekly, month-long meetup open for free to middle school students designed "to introduce underrepresented youth to architecture, urban planning, creative place making, and economic development through the lens of hip-hop culture," and after the camp MOCAD will show an exhibition of work created by the students. We spoke with Ford to learn more.
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2017 Hip Hop Architecture Camp at Madison Public Library
Photo by: MOD Media
The Madison Public Library won a “Top Innovators” award from the Urban Libraries Council for its work with the Hip Hop Architecture Camp. The camp, created by architectural designer and Madison College instructor Michael Ford, aims to increase the number of women and people of color in the urban planning and architecture fields while giving kids the power to design their own communities.
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On Saturday, November 25, 2017 The Hip Hop Architecture Camp was featured on The TODAY Show. The Today Show segment was filmed during a camp in Los Angeles hosted by The La Kretz Innovation Campus. Our camp participants were joined by Sheinelle Jones co-anchor of NBC News' “Weekend TODAY” and a mid-week correspondent for TODAY. Click the video below to view the entire segment and visit The Hip Hop Architecture website for to see the Hip Hop Architecture Camp Visual Album and Mixtape created by participants in variousc cities and to find out how to bring the camp to your city.
About The Camp
The Hip Hop Architecture Camp is a national initiative created by Michael Ford, The Hip Hop Architect, which uses Hip Hop Culture as a catalyst to introduce underrepresented youth to architecture, economic development and urban planning. The Hip Hop Architecture Camp is nationally sponsored by Autodesk and The Urban Arts Collective and made possible by local volunteers and local sponsors.
The Hip Hop Architecture Camp will join with its national sponsor Autodesk, represented by Sarah O'Rourke and The Hip Hop Architecture Camp's director of curriculum development , Dr. Michael Dando to conduct a Hip Hop Architecture Design Cypher during The 2018 SXSWEdu Conference.
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2017 Hip Hop Architecture Camp participants creating a 3D city using Autodesk Tinkercad. Photo by: MOD Media
The Hip Hop Architecture Camp and Madison Public Library earned a national award "2017 Top Innovation in Race and Social Equity" from The Urban Libraries Council.
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Terrance Burney joined the Hip Hop Architecture Camp™ to tell the youth "I See Greatness In You"!
Check out the official music video from The Detroit Hip Hop Architecture Camp™! The song, "Whats The Future of The Hood", was independently written by the camp participants during the one week camp hosted by University of Detroit Mercy's School of Architecture.
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