Gabriela Rendón is an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at the School of Design Strategies, Parsons School of Design, The New School. She currently co-chairs the MS in Design and Urban Ecologies and the MA in Theories of Urban Practice programs. Rendón has instructed courses across different programs and schools at the New School since 2010, including the BA Urban Studies, BFA Integrated Design and MS Design and Urban Ecologies. Rendón has coordinated a number of long-term academic projects with community partners and non-profit organizations. Most of these projects have committed to social and spatial justice and involved students from graduate and undergraduate programs. The Right to Housing Gazette and The Sunset Park Gazette are two of the outcomes of projects produced by MS Design and Urban Ecologies students. Before teaching at the New School, Rendón taught at the European Masters in Urbanism at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. Her research interests include neighborhood decline and restructuring, community planning and practice, economic and ownership cooperative models, as well as other collective and non-speculative housing models providing equitable development in profit-driven urban environments. She is the author and co-editor of a number of publications.

 

Rendón studied architecture at Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in Mexico. Her architectural and design practice along the north-west Mexican border region was highly influenced by the social and spatial dynamics on both sides of the border, the developing and the developed one. The uneven development and the socioeconomic contrasts of the territory motivated Rendón pursuing graduate urban studies at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands where she is currently carrying on doctoral studies at the Chair of Spatial Planning and Strategy. Her doctoral research focuses on state-led sociospatial restructuring of low-income neighborhoods and the politics, practices and constrains of citizen participation in such processes in America and Western Europe. This study is looking particularly at Brooklyn in New York City and Rotterdam in the Randstad Holland.

 

Rendón is also co-founder of Cohabitation Strategies, a nonprofit organization for socio-spatial research, design and development based in Rotterdam and Brooklyn. Cohabitation Strategies' urban practice combines action-research, planning, design, cultural production, art, and activism. Over the last 10 years this non-profit has been engaged in projects of diverse scales and complexities commissioned by art, cultural, and academic institutions, as well as municipalities and government agencies in diverse countries, including the Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany, Venezuela, Ecuador, Canada, and the United States. Rendón’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD), the 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, the Istanbul Design Biennial 2012, the Vienna Biennale 2015, the Portugal Triennial 2016, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

Heeswijk, J. van & Rendón.G. (2017). Lesson Plan for Public Faculty No. 11: Imagining a Curriculum in Sunset Park, In G. Sholette, C. Bass and Social Practice Queens (Eds.) Art as Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art. New York City: Allworth Press.

Rendón, G. & Robles-Durán, M. (2017). Social Property and the Need for a New Urban Practice. In D. Petrescu & K. Trogal (Eds.), Social (Re)Production of Architecture: Politics, Values and Actions in Contemporary Practice. London: Taylor & Francis.

Mitrasinovic, M. & Rendón, G. (Eds) (2017). Cooperative Cities.  Journal of Design Strategies. New York City: School of Design Strategies, The New School.

Rendón, G. (2016). Socio-spatial Practices, Strategies and Pedagogies with a Dialectical Perspective. In M. Mitrasinovic (Ed.), Concurrent Urbanities: Designing Infrastructures of Inclusion. New York: Routledge.

Babina, L., Gandolfi, E., Rendón, G.,Robles-Durán, M., & Uzwiak, B. (2015). Playgrounds for Useful Knowledge: An Action-Research on South Philadelphia. Philadelphia: City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program.

Rendón, G. (2014). Envisioning Public Cooperative Housing. Stages Journal. Retrieved from http://www.biennial.com/journal/issue-2/envisioning-public-cooperative-housing

Robles-Durán, M. &  Rendón, G. (2013). Cohabitation Strategies: Una Experiencia sobre como Analizar y Entender el Sistema Urbano desde un Punto de Vista Ecológico e Interdisciplinar. URBS Revista de Estudios Urbanos y Ciencias Sociales, 3 (1), 117-132. 

Babina, L., Gandolfi, E., Rendón, G., & Robles-Durán, M. (2011). Bordeaux Report: Evento 2011: L’art pour une Re-evolution Urbaine. Bordeaux: Evento 2011: L’art pour une Re-evolution Urbaine. 

Rendón, G. (2011). Citizens (dis)empowerment. Atlantis Magazine. Delft:Polis, Podium voor Stedenbouw.

Rendón, G. (2011) Politics, practices and constrains of socio-spatial restructuring through citizens active engagement  in deprived neighborhoods: The case of Tarwewijk, Rotterdam. In Q. Lei and E. Hasselaar (Eds.), Making room for people: Choice, voice and liveability in residential areas (SUA Series). Amsterdam: Techne Press.