Vacancy is a condition that encompasses both vacant buildings and vacant lands. While these two share commonalities, they relate to distinct social contexts and offer different possibilities for cities and rural locations that exceed their typical associations with blight and under development.

Vacant land is becoming increasingly valuable for its positive ecological effects, improving soil health and the permeability of concrete environments. Similarly, vacant buildings are being engaged with as responsible material banks for new construction, and generally enabling resource circulation within communities. These urban and rural sites are offering new fields for designers to think within their conditions and places of vacancy.

Join Maurice Cox and Mio Tsuneyama as they draw on diverse experiences and concrete realities of vacancy across borders and urban contexts. This event marks the beginning of the CCA-WRI Research Fellowship Program: Vacancy, that over the course of 2026 will welcome three fellows at the CCA pursuing relevant research projects.

This event is free. As seating is limited, registration is recommended.

Maurice Cox Maurice D. Cox is an urban designer, educator, and civic leader. He is Emma Bloomberg Professor in Residence of Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Prior, Cox was Director of Planning and Development for the City of Detroit between 2015-2019 and Commissioner of Planning and Development for the City of Chicago between 2019-2023, where he focused on the adaptive challenges facing contemporary urban revitalization.

Mio Tsuneyama Mio Tsuneyama is a Tokyo-based architect and founder of Studio mnm and HOLES. Her works are characterized by rethinking architecture from the perspective of daily life, utilizing urban resources such as vacant houses, waste materials, soil, and the sun, and placing architecture in a cycle from production to disposal. She teaches at the Tokyo University of Science, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), and Columbia University.