Dana Cuff will present a lecture at 4:30 p.m. Monday, October 7, in Ken and Linda Sue Shollmier Hall, Room 250 of Vol Walker Hall, on the University of Arkansas campus, as part of the fall lecture series in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design.  

Cuff is a professor of architecture, urban design and urban planning, as well as founding director of cityLAB at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).  

In her lecture, “Abundant Housing: Architectures of Spatial Justice,” Cuff will discuss how “architecture has never been more relevant to the pressing problems of contemporary life,” the opening sentence of her recent book, Architectures of Spatial Justice (MIT Press, 2023).  

Case studies from architectural practices around the world demonstrate that designing housing from a spatial justice perspective leads to abundance rather than scarcity. Cuff will show how the role of the architect shifts from designing individual projects to advancing initiatives that proliferate, generate policy and lift goals of equity, all while relying on the profession’s creative capacities. Cuff’s innovative design research practice, cityLAB at UCLA, is but one model pointing the way toward more abundant and accessible housing. It also demonstrates architects’ much-needed engagement with a broader spectrum of practices that include full-scale demonstration projects, community activism and legislation. 

Cuff received her doctorate in architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. She has published and lectured widely about design and inclusion, the architectural profession and affordable housing. Cuff is a prolific writer, including authoring The Provisional City (MIT Press, 2000) about postwar housing in Los Angeles, California, and co-authoring Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City (MIT Press, 2020). Cuff has also co-authored California state housing legislation grounded in cityLAB’s research (AB 2299, 2016; AB 2295, 2022).  

Since cityLAB began in 2006, its impacts have grown significantly under Cuff’s leadership, becoming a model for design-based urban and architectural research centers nationwide. For more than a decade, Cuff has led the Urban Humanities Initiative at UCLA, one of the most innovative social justice curricula in the country and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Cuff has received Architectural Record’s 2019 Women in Architecture Activist of the Year, Architectural Research Center’s Consortium 2020 Researcher of the Year, the American Institute of Architects Los Angeles’ 2020 Educator of the Year, UCLA’s Public Impact Research Award (2022), Lund University’s Honorary Doctorate (2022) and UCLA’s 135th Faculty Research Lecturer (2024).  

Her lecture is the June Biber Freeman Lecture in Architecture. 

The school is pursuing continuing education credits for this lecture through the American Institute of Architects.  

This lecture is free and open to the public. Seating is limited.