ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the evolution of industry that gave rise to modern cities and the expansion of slums and discusses the origins and ongoing influence of the concepts of appropriate and liberatory technology. The Informal Urban Communities Initiative (IUCI) is a design activism, service learning, and research program that address the challenges of slum development at a local level. Much of the IUCI's work to date, both in studios and on-site, has been founded on critical assessment of centralized infrastructure and the top-down institutions and processes that support it. The chapter presents key classes in the department's construction and digital media sequences; LARC 332 Materials, Making Landscape Architecture and LARC 441 Digital Media II. It then describes the 2015 LARC 502 IUCI Design Activism Studio and discusses how students are exploring the synthesis of appropriate technology, liberatory technology, and landscape architectural design.
