Protest Architecture: Structures of civil resistance

by Nick Newman

A complex bamboo pyramid to block a busy crossing in London. A maze of 'mini Stonehenge' brick structures to hinder government crackdowns in Hong Kong. The takeover of a Dallas highway to create a temporary public square.

Architects have often used their skills in struggles for civil rights, gender equality and climate justice. Illuminating the role that design has played in protest movements, Nick Newman explores the colliding worlds of architecture and activism through the stories of those who have built for change.

Using historic and contemporary examples, Protest Architecture analyses the design problems and solutions faced by protestors on the streets through detailed drawings, photography and expert insight.

From beacons to barricades, towers to treehouses, this unique design typology demonstrates architectural influence over moments of societal change.

This is a retelling of protest history through the eyes of an architect.

208 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2024

About the author

Nick Newman is a lifelong nature lover from the UK, who spent the early part of his career working with racehorses. After enrolling in a training programme in 2014, he travelled to South Africa where he qualified as a Field Guide relishing the time he got to spend in the African bush. His life changed in unimaginable ways, after a once in a lifetime opportunity presented itself and he was afforded the opportunity to monitor black rhinos. This coincided with the period when the current rhino poaching crisis in South Africa was approaching tipping point. Finding himself in such a privileged position of helping to protect a critically endangered species, Nick today feels that he has a duty and responsibility to assist other conservationists in raising awareness of the rhinos’ plight, by sharing his stories from the frontline.

Reviews

[Callum Robert Inkster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nick is able to pull together a whole host of different examples of protest movements that have employed some elements of Protest Architecture. Though each isn't explored in much depth, the breadth of the topic is too wide to do so.

On top of this, it showcases the efforts that Architects, when they implore themselves to do so, could bring to the protest movement. Beyond just our bodies.

As well as how possible movements such as the campus occupations for the Palestine movement could have been enhanced via treehouses or tunnels.

The only complaint that holds back the book, is it feels quite libbed up.

[stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

i'm doing research on protest/occupation urbanism for grad school and this is a good reference for the basic spatial principles of them. it's hard because i would love more specific studies and details of protest tactics and responses to policing, but you also don't exactly want to publish that information you know?