A.07 Contemporary Research Informed Practices: Mario Gooden & Sumayya Vally Comprehensive Comparison

Studio Name: Mario Gooden Studio

Practice: Architect, writer, educator; design practice operating across architecture, urbanism, exhibition design, and cultural research

Location: New York, USA

Lecture Name: Mario Gooden: Dark Space / Black Futures

---

Firm Name: Counterspace

Practice: Founder and Principal Architect; researcher and curator working across architecture, urbanism, and cultural practice

Location: Johannesburg, South Africa

Lecture Name: Sumayya Vally: Architecture of Care / Counterspace: Building Otherwise

---

About Mario Gooden

Mario Gooden’s practice centers Black experience, memory, and cultural identity as generators of architectural form. Rather than approaching architecture as neutral or universal, his work argues that space is deeply racialized and political. Through buildings, exhibitions, and writing, Gooden explores how architecture can both reveal and resist the historical erasure of Black presence in American space.

His projects often operate at multiple scales (homes, cultural institutions, memorials, and speculative research) blending historical analysis with contemporary spatial expression. Gooden uses architecture as storytelling, embedding narratives of survival, joy, trauma, and resilience into the built environment. His work prioritizes atmosphere, symbolism, and cultural legibility, challenging modernist traditions that have historically excluded Black spatial knowledge.

Research Strategies

For this profile, I focused on Mario Gooden’s lectures, essays, and project documentation, paying close attention to how he articulates Black space as both lived reality and design framework. I reviewed his writings on racialized space and memory alongside built and exhibited work to understand how theory translates into form. This research helped clarify how his practice uses architecture not just to house bodies, but to hold culture, history, and collective identity.

About Sumayya Vally

Counterspace is an architecture and research studio that interrogates power, memory, and belonging within cities shaped by colonialism and apartheid. Led by Sumayya Vally, the practice focuses on revealing overlooked histories and re-centering spaces traditionally occupied by marginalized communities—particularly Muslim, Black, and migrant populations.

Counterspace operates through mapping, narrative research, and spatial intervention, often working with existing sites rather than introducing dominant new forms. Vally’s work questions authorship and permanence, favoring temporary, adaptive, and relational architectures. Her designs emphasize care, ritual, and collective memory, reframing architecture as an act of listening rather than control.

Research Strategies

In researching Counterspace, I engaged with Sumayya Vally’s lectures, interviews, and project documentation, especially her work on memory mapping and decolonial design methods. I focused on how her research-led approach informs spatial decisions, material choices, and programmatic intent. This allowed me to understand how Counterspace translates social histories and lived experiences into architectural strategies rooted in care and accountability.