Nadia M. Anderson

Nadia M. Anderson is an associate professor of architecture and urban design in the David R. Ravin School of Architecture. Her work is about how power and injustice are present in the built environment and how this can be changed through creative work as praxis. She is a licensed architect with professional experience in Chicago, Warsaw, and Vienna. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University and a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. 

Professor Anderson’s work includes addressing systemic racism through systems-based affordable housing and local food systems; developing new architecture pedagogies that overcome hegemonic white supremacy; and identifying how informal spatial practices generate opportunities for sovereignty in the built environment. Anderson uses community engagement to co-create places embodying local values. She has worked with multiple organizations and the City of Charlotte to develop new policies and design methods for affordable housing. At the urban scale she builds on buried ecological systems to generate collective climate change resilient systems. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Institute of Architects, and the Gambrell Foundation. Her writing and theoretical investigations focus on how power has been distributed through system structures in architectural practice and education. She has brought this work into organizational discourses as Chair of the ACSA Education Committee, a member of the College of Arts + Architecture Diversity Council, and convener of UNC Charlotte’s Urban Complexities symposia.

EXPLORE HER RECENT WORK

City of Charlotte NEST Commission Anti-Displacement Report | The Neighborhood Equity and Stabilization (NEST) Commission was created with the adoption of the Charlotte Future 2024 Comprehensive Plan by City Council resolution on June 21, 2021. The Commission was created to review and recommend specific anti-displacement strategies and specific tools for protecting residents of moderate to high vulnerability of displacement.

West Sugar Creek Road Innovation Incubator, Community Mapping | Charlotte officials, a few years ago, designated the Sugar Creek/I-85 area as one of six Corridors of Opportunity, where the city is investing millions in infrastructure and services to improve the quality of life. Nadia serves as one of the members of the West Sugar Creek/I-85 Community Innovation Incubator team.

I-77 Corridor Visioning, Conceptual Study, Sebastian Murilo