Spatial (In) Justice: How Does It Manifest in the Built Environment?

Explores how spatial justice shapes equitable, empowering, and inclusive experiences

In an era increasingly defined by questions of equity and inclusion, Spatial (In) Justice: How Does It Manifest in the Built Environment? offers a vital, global interrogation of how architecture and planning impact the lived experiences of marginalized communities. Edited by Adnan Zillur Morshed, this timely volume brings together contributions from 33 leading thinkers and practitioners―architects, planners, scholars, and academics―who reflect on the ethical and philosophical responsibilities of those who shape space.

Rather than offering simplistic answers or prescriptive solutions, this book explores the complex and often contradictory ways justice is interpreted and enacted through space. The essays examine built projects from around the world to ask whether design can foster dignity, hope, and community empowerment―and how design education must evolve to foreground these values. The contributing authors grapple with the mechanisms through which spatial practices can exclude, disempower, or uplift, addressing topics ranging from justice in the city to the politics of community engagement. Throughout the book, the essays advance a critical pedagogy of design―one that scrutinizes how space organizes power and shapes human possibility.

Contributors (in alphabetical order):

Annmarie Adams
Esra Akcan
Glenn Albrecht
Thomas Barrie
Tom Beaudoin
Bryan Bell
Julio Bermudez
Prem Chandavarkar
Howard Davis
Kim Dovey
Andrew Freear
Tammy Gaber
Megan Gee
Iqbal Habib
Adam Hart
Aseem Inam
Kathleen James-Chakraborty
Mark Jarzombek
Khondaker Hasibul Kabir
Pamela Karimi
Fernando Lara
Yasmeen Lari
Paco Mejias Villatoro
Jason Montgomery
Donghwan Moon
Adnan Zillur Morshed
Dahlia Nduom
Susan Piedmont-Palladino
Sharon Prince
Katie Swenson
Marina Tabassum
Diane Rhyu Taylor
Junjie Xi

Adnan Zillur Morshed is an architect, architectural historian, urban theorist, and professor at the School of Architecture and Planning at The Catholic University of America. He is the Founder-Director of the Centre for Inclusive Architecture and Urbanism (Ci+AU) at BRAC University, a Fulbright Specialist (2021–2025), and a TEDx speaker. His publications and research focus on global architectural history, spatial justice, histories of water and the built environment, ecological urbanism, and urban poverty. Morshed is the author of multiple books, including Impossible Heights: Skyscrapers, Flight, and the Master Builder (University Minnesota Press, 2015), DAC: Dhaka in Twenty-Five Buildings (Altrim Publishers, 2017), and Dhaka Delirium (Altrim Publishers, 2023), has held fellowships at the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, and was featured in the documentary Louis Kahn’s Tiger City.