“Spatial justice means that justice has a geography and that the equitable distribution of access, services, and outcomes is a basic human right. A lack of spatial justice isn’t just about the deprivation of physical resources like housing or parks, but also the wide range of devastating interrelated social, economic, and health repercussions.”
Liz Ogbu is a designer, urbanist, and activist focused on engaging and transforming unjust urban environments. From designing shelters for immigrant day laborers in the United States to a water and health social enterprise for low-income people in Kenya, Liz has a long track record of working with historically marginalized communities to leverage the power of design to catalyze community healing and environments that support people’s capacity to thrive.
Liz is the founder and principal of Studio O, a design consultancy working at the intersection of racial and spatial justice. Prior to Studio O, Liz was actively involved in shaping two of the world’s pioneering social impact design nonprofits, IDEO.org, which fosters global poverty reduction through design and innovation, and Public Architecture, a national nonprofit that mobilized designers to create social change.
Over the years, Liz has taught at major academic institutions like UC Berkley, Stanford and University of Virginia; been a speaker at high-profile gatherings like the Aspen Ideas Festival and Clinton Global Initiative; and exhibited her work in museums from New York to Venice. She earned her architecture degrees at Wellesley College and the Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
Organization
Studio O, Oakland
Area of Focus
Racial equity, impact measurement and affordable housing
Fellowship Project
Advance the development of the Social Impact Protocol for affordable housing, a tool for evaluating and setting up accountability for the social impacts of housing redevelopment.
Liz Ogbu, designer, urbanist and 2021 Rubinger Fellow, illuminates the ways our built environments have created and reinforced racial and class inequities. She’s also here to show us how communities can collectively envision—and enact—environments that repair the harms of injustice embedded, over the course of many generations, in the places we live and work.