Abraham Diaz

Abraham Diaz is a Master of Architecture student researching trauma-informed design in architecture. His research as a Divided City Graduate Fellow focuses on how a substantial portion of the built environment (manmade works of architecture and infrastructure) holds proof that much of the United States was constructed to be anti-black, colonial, and patriarchal, and is upheld systematically and intentionally targets specific communities and groups of people. The inverse, trauma-informed design, acknowledges that the potential for trauma exists readily within the built environment, and it must be thoughtfully integrated into design processes that seek community engagement as a primary design platform. This framework, what he calls Responsive Design (RD), is rooted in the recognition of spatial trauma through an abolitionist analysis of place and history and seek to uphold the affirmative abolitionist mission.