Zarith Pineda

Zarith Pineda is an architectural, urban designer and the founder of the nonprofit design collective, Territorial Empathy, which was founded on the belief that empathy-based design is the key to solving the pressing urban issues of our time. Their work aims to support the historically oppressed in their movement towards urban equity. Through an anti-bias and anti-racist lens, they work to develop community-based design recommendations aimed to create inclusive communities. Most recently, through the interactive platform Segregation is Killing Us, they have investigated the impacts of COVID-19 on communities of color throughout New York City raising public awareness around decades-long policies that contributed to the virus infecting Black and Latino New Yorkers disproportionally. Other noteworthy projects include The People’s Bus for the New York City Civic Engagement commission, Learning Outside the Box an open-source kit for outdoor classrooms, and Unaccompanied Assault which visualizes the adverse impacts of the Family Separation policy on migrant children. She has taught digital design techniques, urban design, and data visualization at Columbia University as an Adjunct Associate Professor. Zarith’s work has been published and exhibited in New York, New Orleans, Washington D.C., Paris, Brussels, Venice, and Amman.