Vivian Schwab is a designer and researcher based in San Francisco. She works on affordable housing and civic architecture in the Bay Area, and serves on the Board of Directors and Executive Management Team of the San Francisco Community Land Trust. She studied Sociology and Studio Art at Wesleyan University and completed her Masters of Architecture at Rice University. Her research focuses on co-operative ownership, land de-commodification, and climate adaptation in the built environment. This research was partially funded by the Morris R. Pittman Award in Architecture from Rice University in 2019.

April 11, 2024

Analysis

The Electric Vehicle Developmental State

BYD exemplifies transformations in Chinese industrial policy

The rise of the Chinese EV industry has been enabled not only by generous government subsidies but also by profound changes in strategy and organization, and in particular by a distinctive revival of vertical integration—at both individual firm and national…

March 23, 2022

Analysis

A New Public Housing Model

Addis Ababa's Urban Transformation

, Vivian Schwab

In 2006, the government of Ethiopia embarked on a mission to construct half a million condominium apartments over a twenty-year period in its capital of Addis Ababa—a city of only five million. Now, sixteen years later, the initiative has transformed the…