Global Urban Humanities/Future Histories Lab

Instructor: Walter Hood

Term: Spring 2016

Course #: Landscape Architecture 203 / City Planning 243

Why Read This Case Study?

Museums are among the most important urban institutions – repositories of art, culture, and history; educational opportunities; spaces of community dialogue; and hubs of community life. Many graduate students are alert to the role of museums, seek to learn more, and are eager to work with – and learn from – museums, as partners in their explorations.

In this graduate research studio, Museum and the City, led by landscape architects Walter Hood and Marcus Owens, students from a variety of disciplines including architecture, landscape architecture, city planning, art practice, and performance studies, worked with the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) on engaging the community in the life of the museum.

Students studied the origins of OMCA, rooted in Oakland’s Black Power movement and civil rights struggles of the 1960s, and its physical manifestation on the shores of the city’s Lake Merritt. With dedicated studio space, student teams explored OMCA’s Brutalist architecture and modernist landscape, studied historical maps, and used visualization – formal design exercises, photography, community mapping, exhibit design – to understand the museum’s relation to the city and adjacent neighborhoods. This studio-based pedagogy, unfamiliar to some of the students, exposed them to a learning model based on teamwork, frequent iteration of ideas and interim work products, and continuous feedback from instructors, fellow students, and OMCA partners. They used new-found design and presentation skills to fabricate interactive installations exhibited on-site at the museum’s popular Friday Night at OMCA.