studio BLEAK

About

Studio BLEAK is a partnership of concerned designers, architects, activists, and social justice communities, focused on deepening architecture and design's relationship to social and environmental justice. We think of design in terms of its constraints and embrace our limitations in an opportunistic light. Balancing our self criticism with persistent optimism, we hope to identify new roles for design and join existing efforts to grow social equity. ​Our vision is that of comprehensive reorganization of the global systems that exploit the people and degrade the planet. We believe that architects can do more to serve this cause and, by partnering with activism, can push for real, effective change.​ We reject the apparent inevitability of architecture serving monetary systems of injustice, and we believe in the possibility for designers to better support those who are disenfranchised. The studio is the brainchild of years of conversation, shared sentiments and unchanneled angst between Brandon Youndt, Elliott Lamborn and Laura Schmitt-Hall. As young architectural designers exploring new ways of engaging in the discourse, they found opportunity within social justice movements, sharing sentiments of designing a more just world. BLEAK was founded to build partnerships between the design we love and the justice we crave. The studio operates out of Los Angeles and maintains partnerships in Philadelphia and Brooklyn within communities of design and activism.