麻豆传媒

The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy at the 麻豆传媒o
Episode #48
Podcast recording date: 5/6/2025
Host-producer: Tarun Gangadhar Vadaparthi
Speaker: Korydon Smith, Chair, Department of Architecture; Founding Co-Director, Community for Global Health Equity, 麻豆传媒o
Contact information: BaldyCenter@buffalo.edu

Transcription begins.

Tarun:
Hello and welcome to The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy Podcast produced by the 麻豆传媒o. I'm your podcast host and producer, Tarun Gangadhar. In today's episode, I'm joined by Professor Korydon Smith, chair of the Department of Architecture at the 麻豆传媒o and founding co-director at UB’s Community for Global Health Equity. Professor Smith brings dual expertise in architecture and higher education leadership, working across disciplines from planning to anthropology to develop inclusive design strategies for communities that are often excluded from decision-making processes. We'll explore his work on refugee housing and settlement planning in countries like Rwanda and Uganda, the cultural and ethical dimension of design and the role of interdisciplinary collaboration in addressing global health and housing challenges. Here is Professor Smith. To begin what inspired your focus on inclusive design and social justice in architecture?

Korydon:
Yeah, great question. I'll start by saying that the built environment affects us in many different ways and in many hidden ways. The design of a classroom impacts our learning. The design of a hospital affects how we heal. The design of a transportation system affects our access to jobs and education and a number of other different factors in the built environment impact our mental health wellbeing. I first came into contact with inclusive design and universal design, two interchangeable words, when I was a student at the University of Buffalo as an undergraduate and faculty members were doing research and offered a class on universal design. It was a new concept to me, but actually connected very much to my childhood and upbringing. At a relatively young age, I was a caregiver for both of my grandfathers who were in poor health. I realized that the idea of inclusive design could have benefited them tremendously in terms of their independence, their health and wellbeing, their quality of life.

Tarun:
That's a really powerful connection between personal experience and design philosophy. Thank you for sharing that, Professor Smith. Let's now move on to your work abroad. Could you share insights from your research on refugee housing and settlement planning in countries like Rwanda and Uganda?

Korydon:
Yeah, sure. Refugee resettlement in Uganda is, I think we can learn a lot of lessons from that particular context, especially a region that has been negatively impacted by conflict for decades. Most recently the conflict in South Sudan, the world's youngest country, has caused a number of refugees to flee into Northern Uganda. Uganda, relatively impoverished region, despite its resource constraints, has provided a number of stable and new, relatively new built environments for South Sudanese refugees. Interestingly, in context where there are existing Ugandans as well. And so they've taken an approach that is a human rights approach where anyone who crosses the border is provided immigration status relatively swiftly, especially by Western standards. A process that can take days or weeks actually very quick, as opposed to years, and provide incoming refugees with access to education, healthcare, a right to work and other services that are then provided. And rather than a camp-based approach, which is what we see throughout the world, it's actually a settlement-based approach where the local refugee resettlement agencies are helping to construct roads, water and sanitation systems, housing, schools, health clinics that are mutually beneficial to both refugees and the local population.

Tarun:
It's inspiring to hear how such a resource limited context can still promote dignity and rights. How do cultural needs and preferences then influence the design of these refugee settlements?

Korydon:
In, again, I'll go back to the example of Uganda and the approach. The Danish Refugee Council is the international organization that is predominantly overseeing refugee resettlement in that region. They don't have the resources, there aren't the international resources, and Uganda certainly doesn't have the resources to be able to provide all the housing needs that are required when you're seeing 1000, 1500 refugees crossing the border a day during peak times of conflict. And so the question is, how in the course of six months do you provide a city for 250,000 people in a region that's relatively rural? The approach there actually is a culturally based approach, especially to housing. And so what the DRC is doing is leveraging the fact that most families have some experience and local knowledge in home building traditions, and so they're providing equipment, tools, and so forth, and a basic small kit of building materials to then be able to construct their own homes that are traditional, typically circular construction with a mud brick construction and thatched roof process, and therefore they're able to provide something within the resource constraints that they have. At the same time, it's a home that is quite traditional in its shape, its form, materials, and quite culturally resonant then.

Tarun:
That's fascinating, especially how traditional knowledge is integrated into practical housing, but I imagine that brings unique considerations. What challenges arise when incorporating cultural traditions into large scale housing design?

Korydon:
I probably think of it less as challenges and more opportunities. From the standpoint of, I think sometimes we think of intelligence and wisdom as something that comes from a book or from a classroom or from a formal education process, but really, especially in contexts like this, you have to look at wisdom and intelligence as something that is about people's life experiences, is about cultural traditions and how can we gain those lessons learned and deploy them. Really the challenge I think is how to do that at a large scale, to be able to serve large numbers of people in need and not just single one-off types of projects, but I think that the cultural traditions actually provide a path to be able to work within those resource constraints and actually as an opportunity in design and architectural thinking and planning rather than necessarily as a challenge.

Tarun:
I really like the way you frame these as opportunities instead of obstacles. So how can architects and planners then balance the need of rapid resettlement with the goal of sustainable culturally sensitive housing solutions?

Korydon:
Yeah, that's a good question and it's certainly a complicated one, and if we understand that any city around the world or any region around the world goes through multiple phases of change, increased population, decreased population, and humans certainly have an impact on the environment around us and anything. We can't ever build something that is truly infinitely sustainable. It requires upkeep and maintenance, and we can't ever do anything that has zero environmental impact, but we're trying to mitigate those. Again, using the example of housing resettlement in Uganda, homes in that area are built with natural materials and materials that are easily able to go back to the earth after. If the settlement patterns change or if people depart, those materials not only are recyclable but are just organic materials that will return to the earth. It's hard to fully build like that in other types of contexts or buildings that are much larger or more complicated, but I think we can draw lessons on that line of thinking as we design other cities around the world.

Tarun:
Those are important lessons, especially about thinking in phases and respecting local materials. Let's talk ethics now. What are the key ethical considerations when designing for vulnerable populations?

Korydon:
Yeah, ethics is something that is always top of mind for me, especially when doing international work and as someone who is foreign to the context. I always take an approach that is, I'm here to learn first and then how can I help to build capacity and knowledge even further in a particular context of what can I provide that helps to improve the situation? I think a fundamental ethical principle is like in medicine, is a do no harm principle. I think that's really important. It's hard as an architect to approach the world that way because we're hired to do things and we're hired to make a positive impact and to build things, but at the same time, I think that lens of how can I mitigate further risk to vulnerable populations that are already at high risk because of the context that they're in, because of, again, conflict, because of extreme environments that are challenging and demanding to live in, and so how can we ensure that we're not negatively impacting mental health, physical wellbeing, and bring that approach to what we're doing?

Tarun:
Absolutely. That do not harm approach is so essential. How do you envision refugee housing design evolving in response to changing global policy and legal frameworks?

Korydon:
Yeah, wonderful question, and I think I would start by maybe backing up and saying that human migration is human history and refugee issues that we're seeing now are not new. Humans throughout human history have had conflicts, have caused forced migration as different climates evolve and different areas where humans need access to fresh water and the ability to grow food, and so we move, we migrate as a result of those things. Sometimes that migration has forced migration because of conflict, as in the case of refugee resettlement, but other times it's just simply we realize that there is another context that might be more supportive to us, and in a modern sense, that might be because of employment, right? So your average American moves still every seven years, and sometimes that's just from one neighborhood to the next. Sometimes it's across state lines. So humans move, and I think we have to bring that point of view as we start to design new cities and plan for refugee resettlement globally. And if we bring that perspective, then I think we integrate refugee resettlement planning into our city planning organizations. So just like we're doing transportation planning and housing planning, refugee resettlement or human migration planning, it should be part of our thinking at the city level. And then of course, how we then do housing. And whether you're talking about private sector housing development or public housing development, I think then gets influenced by that line of thinking that people are going to move into and out of the housing that we build. How do we build higher quality housing that is supportive of mental health, physical health as well?

Tarun:
That broader perspective of migration as a natural human process really reframes the issue. In that context, how does your research help shape public policy or influence decision makers?

Korydon:
Again, I think my specific role, and this would be an answer, I think different academics, different practitioners would have different answers to that question, and for me, I think my job first as a researcher is to uncover hidden stories. And so being able to publish work on the very interesting and quite unique lessons learned from Uganda as a means to elevate those stories and bring them more to the foreground, I think is one of my primary responsibilities is to reveal those hidden messages and hidden lessons. And then I think the other work that I do is a lot of capacity building work. So I'm working by invitation from external organizations or international partners as a means to run training workshops so that people have more of the tools themselves for decision-making and policy influence. So it's less about me influencing policy directly, but more so being able to provide interesting information in terms of storytelling on the one hand as an academic and then building capacity so that advocacy organizations can advocate for themselves.

Tarun:
It's admirable that you focus on empowering others through storytelling and capacity building. Now turning to your interdisciplinary work, can you discuss how collaboration with the Community for Global Health Equity at UB shapes your work?

Korydon:
Yeah, so the Community of Excellence in Global Health Equity was founded at UB in 2015. Highly interdisciplinary work, working across a number of different global health issues from maternal and child health to food systems to again, refugee resettlement, both here locally as well as internationally. And we had a number of different working groups that formed and across every discipline on campus. So really exciting and fun work and all of that done with international partners of a variety of different kinds. So where we're doing collaborative problem solving, where academics across different disciplines plus international partners are helping to frame and identify what the problems and issues are, what the research questions are, as well as what some of the problem solving strategies and implementation strategies might be. So working from the very, very beginning of problem framing through the process of implementation. And again through, I think the ability that the University of Buffalo as the most comprehensive institution in the northeast and representative of so many different disciplines, bringing that power to bear in the arena of global health.

Tarun:
That's an incredible model for cross-discipline teamwork and global engagement. Can you share any takeaways from mentoring students involved in refugee or homelessness related housing project?

Korydon:
Yeah, I've had great honor of working with lots of undergraduate and graduate students, predominantly in architecture where I am, but again, through the Community of Excellence in Global Health Equity, worked with students across all disciplinary backgrounds, again in classroom experiences, as well as helping to facilitate students being able to travel and work with our international partners on really important work. For example, another project in Uganda, we visited schools, and we developed a tool to do assessments of schools in terms of their accessibility, especially restroom facilities. For kids with disabilities, especially, the design of the restroom is the difference between having access to the school and not, and the difference between having an education and not having an education. So we might look at classroom design and a number of other things, but oftentimes it's the infrastructure that underpins a school that has those kinds of impacts, and so students were able to help develop the tool as well as collect the first ever data globally that is now part of the UNICEF and World Health Organization international partnership for assessing schools around the world in terms of their accessibility. So I've learned many, many things from students I've been able to work with in the past. Probably too many things to share here, but again, I think my approach in those contexts is less about me as a professor conveying knowledge and me collaborating directly with students and co-learning with them.

Tarun:
Amazing impact, especially contributing to global standards through student led work. Lastly, could you give an example of how inclusive design has improved the lives of marginalized communities?

Korydon:
Yeah. I would actually go to work that we're doing on this campus right now actually. So a number of different faculty and staff in campus planning, in the provost’s office, and academics across different disciplines are working on campus and have been for several years to improve the built environment on campus because we know that while my work has predominantly been an international conflict context where populations are at much higher risk, we know that our institutions serves people from all over the world and from all kinds of different backgrounds, different economic backgrounds, different disability backgrounds, life experiences, and how can we provide the most supportive campus design in terms of classroom design, facilities, health infrastructure, access to recreation, access to green space, all the things that are critical in making a healthy and productive built environment.

Tarun:
That's so true. Even in our own communities, thoughtful design can make a huge difference. To close, what advice would you give to young professionals hoping to work at the intersection of architecture, social justice, and policy?

Korydon:
One of the things that I think is really important is to, even if you're educated in a very specific discipline, civil engineering, law, anthropology, mathematics, whatever the discipline is that you're bringing, to continue to have conversations with people outside of that way of thinking. I think the challenges that we see in the world today are so complicated. They require policy thinking. They require scientific thinking. They require creative and artistic thinking, and they certainly require the social sciences and humanities and lessons learned over history to be incorporated in solving them. So I think maintaining an interdisciplinary perspective and collaborations in the work and not being so focused on your own discipline that you're only looking at that as the means to solve the problems, because I think the problems are so complicated. They require a certain curiosity and openness and flexibility to trying out new ways of thinking.

Tarun:
That is such wise advice and humble advice. Staying open, collaborative, and curious. Before we wrap up, is there any final message you'd like to share with our listeners?

Korydon:
I don't have anything else to share other than gratitude for your time and the opportunity to be here and speak with you.

Tarun:
Thank you so much, Professor. That was Professor Smith, and this has been The Baldy Center for Law on Social Policy Podcast produced by the 麻豆传媒o. Let us know what you think by visiting our X, formally Twitter @baldycenter, or emailing us at baldycenter@buffalo.edu. To learn more about the Center, visit our website, buffalo.edu/baldycenter. My name is Tarun and behalf of The Baldy Center. Thank you for listening.

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