Life After Property

The lines drawn on land to claim ownership and demarcate property have had widespread ramifica­tions on forming divisions — between race, class, ecologies, and social groups, amongst others. In the United States, the commodification of land is now so deeply entrenched with economic and social policies that it often is used as a form of economic support in the wake of dwindling forms of social security. Not only does this amplify divisions between classes, these policies reify in formal decisions that reaffirm this status quo. Despite the pervasiveness of commodified private property models, these are relatively nascent when compared to the history of the city and how humans have lived. Life After Property examines how the territory, neighborhood, block, and home can be reclaimed for more col­lectivized ways of living and being. The five projects presented consider techniques such as resistance, decommodification, commoning, re-graining, and framing, to offer more equitable ways of distribut­ing resources—forming solidarity, community control, and forms of care to combat precarity.

Life After Property contains design work by THE OPEN WORKSHOP completed be­tween 2020 and 2023. The Open Workshop is a design-research practice operating at the nexus of architecture and urbanism. Founded by Neeraj Bhatia in 2013, the firm has been awarded The Architectural League of New York’s Emerging Voices Award (2024), Canadian Prix de Rome (2019), Emerging Leaders Award (Design Intelligence) (2017), and Architecture League Prize (2016). Their work has been commissioned by the Venice Biennale, Chicago Architecture Biennial, Seoul Biennale and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Neeraj is also an Associate Professor at the California College of the Arts where he directs the urbanism research Lab, The Urban Works Agency.

a PLACE meant

Sai Sinbondit

Founding Principal & Executive Director

Sai comes from a family of refugees who came to this country when he was a child. On their journey to the United States, his family spent several years in a refugee camp and finally settled in a small community in the northwest corner of Ohio. While growing up, the challenges his family experienced as displaced people along with his parents’ commitment, and self-reliance to get his family to a better place inspires him to not only experience the world, but to question it, engage it, and contribute to it.

As the Founding Principal of I_You Design Lab, Sai continues to use architecture and art as tools to access and engage the dynamic relationship between people and place – focusing on lifting the quality of daily life for people that has been displaced. Sai holds a Master of Architecture from Syracuse University, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Center of Visual Arts, and Bachelor of Science in Art History from the University of Toledo.

Exhibition Description

a PLACE meant

Affordable housing is often misunderstood, obscured in many of the same misconceptions as other social policies aimed at helping low-income and vulnerable populations. According to the 2023 State of the Nation’s Housing report, over 37 million households in the U.S. pay more than 30% of their income on housing. More than 1 in 7 of these households pay more than 50% of their income on housing. In most of the neighborhoods across the country, rising housing costs and interest rates, high barriers to housing access, legacies of discrimination policies, and practices have disproportionately excluded lower-income families from the opportunities that come with a stable, affordable home.

Cleveland has celebrated a recent resurgence, yet there remains an undeniable need for affordable housing here, the lack of which is one of the leading causes of displacement and homelessness. Never in history has there been a time when so many people are displaced. Yet, with Cleveland’s surplus of abandoned houses and vacant lots, NE Ohio is uniquely positioned to lead the country in modeling innovative approaches to creating quality affordable and sustainable housing.

a PLACE meant examines how housing infrastructure can be part of the solution through innovative ideas that can help shift the landscape of affordable housing here and beyond. Looking beyond traditional building and construction means and methods, the exhibition focuses on innovative concepts at the nexus of environmental responsibility, energy efficiency, and contemporary design.

This exhibition asks what it takes to innovate affordable housing solutions in our city. Complacency maintains an unacceptable lack of housing and displacement for many Clevelanders. To embrace and drive change, we need forward thinking, fast-paced response, curiosity, inclusiveness, risk taking, a willingness to invest in new processes, partnerships, planning, and designs, and an embrace of change.