Profile
Gabriela Rendón is an Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Community Development and Founding Director of Parsons Housing Justice Lab at The New School. She currently co-coordinates the Graduate Minor in Design and Urban Justice and is a Faculty Fellow at the Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography, and Social Thought (2022-2023). Rendón’s expertise and research interests include community planning and design, socio-spatial restructuring of immigrant neighborhoods, rise and settlement of Latinx urban communities, housing and tenants rights, gentrification and displacement, cooperative housing models, as well as other collective and non-speculative housing development schemes providing equitable development in profit-driven urban environments. She is a board member of the Cooper Square Community Land Trust and the Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association. She has previously served other community-based organizations and boards, including the Left Forum in New York City.
Rendón is co-founder of Urban Front, a transnational consultancy offering localized knowledge to public and third-sector organizations that work for social and environmental justice, and of Cohabitation Strategies, a nonprofit that facilitates community-led local efforts through participatory frameworks leading to urban and social transformation. She has worked on urban and community-based projects commissioned by nonprofits, public agencies, municipalities, and national governments across cities in Western Europe and South and North America. Gabriela’s work has been exhibited at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD), the Portugal Triennial 2016, the Vienna Biennale 2015, the Istanbul Design Biennial 2012, and the 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam. She has authored and co-edited publications on housing, cooperative urban practices, and neighborhood restructuring. She is working on two books, Defiant Neighborhoods: Rise, Revitalization, and Gentrification of Immigrant Communities in Latinx Brooklyn and Cohabitation Strategies: Thoughts and Actions for the Co-Production of Social Space.
Rendón earned a Ph.D. in Spatial Planning and Strategy and a MS in Urbanism from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and a BS in Architecture from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in Mexico. Prior to teaching at The New School, she taught at the European Masters in Urbanism at Delft University of Technology. Rendón was born and raised in Mexico and worked at the Tijuana/San Diego border region where she developed a passion for immigrant and housing justice. She currently lives in Brooklyn.
Recent Publications
Rendón, G. (forthcoming) Defiant Neighborhoods: Rise, Revitalization, and Gentrification of Immigrant Communities in Latinx Brooklyn [Book manuscript in preparation].
Gandolfi, E., Rendón, G. & Robles-Duran, M. (forthcoming) Cohabitation Strategies: Thoughts and Actions for the Co-Production of Social Space. San Francisco/Los Angeles: Oro Editions.
Rendón, G. (2018). Cities for or against citizens? Socio-spatial restructuring in low-income neighborhoods and the paradox of citizen participation. Delft: AB+B Series.
Heeswijk, J. van & Rendón, G. (2017). Lesson Plan for Public Faculty No. 11: Imagining a Curriculum in Sunset Park, In G. Sholette, C. Bass and Social Practice Queens (Eds.) Art as Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art. New York City: Allworth Press.
Rendón, G. & Robles-Durán, M. (2017). Social Property and the Need for a New Urban Practice. In D. Petrescu & K. Trogal (Eds.), Social (Re)Production of Architecture: Politics, Values and Actions in Contemporary Practice. London: Taylor & Francis.
Mitrasinovic, M. & Rendón, G. (Eds) (2017). Cooperative Cities. Journal of Design Strategies. New York City: School of Design Strategies, The New School.
Rendón, G. (2016). Socio-spatial Practices, Strategies, and Pedagogies with a Dialectical Perspective. In M. Mitrasinovic (Ed.), Concurrent Urbanities: Designing Infrastructures of Inclusion. New York: Routledge.
Babina, L., Gandolfi, E., Rendón, G., Robles-Durán, M., & Uzwiak, B. (2015). Playgrounds for Useful Knowledge: An Action-Research on South Philadelphia. Philadelphia: City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program.
Rendón, G. (2014). Envisioning Public Cooperative Housing. Stages Journal. Retrieved from http://www.biennial.com/journal/issue-2/envisioning-public-cooperative-housing
Robles-Durán, M. & Rendón, G. (2013). Cohabitation Strategies: Una Experiencia sobre como Analizar y Entender el Sistema Urbano desde un Punto de Vista Ecológico e Interdisciplinar. URBS Revista de Estudios Urbanos y Ciencias Sociales, 3 (1), 117-132.
Babina, L., Gandolfi, E., Rendón, G., & Robles-Durán, M. (2011). Bordeaux Report: Evento 2011: L’art pour une Re-evolution Urbaine. Bordeaux: Evento 2011: L’art pour une Re-evolution Urbaine.
Rendón, G. (2011). Citizens (dis)empowerment. Atlantis Magazine. Delft:Polis, Podium voor Stedenbouw.
Rendón, G. (2011) Politics, practices and constraints of socio-spatial restructuring through citizens active engagement in deprived neighborhoods: The case of Tarwewijk, Rotterdam. In Q. Lei and E. Hasselaar (Eds.), Making room for people: Choice, voice, and liveability in residential areas (SUA Series). Amsterdam: Techne Press.
Research Interests
Community planning and design, participatory action research, neighborhood decline and restructuring, immigrant neighborhoods, rise and settlement of Latinx urban communities,housing and tenants rights, gentrification and displacement, community control and shared ownership of housing and land.
Portfolio
Parsons Housing Justice Lab
Urban Front
Cohabitation Strategies
Playgrounds for Useful Knowledge