Laura Kozak is a community-based designer, researcher and Assistant Professor in Emily Carr’s Faculty of Culture and Community. She works to practice relational, place-based ethics, asking how designers contribute to relationships with communities, land, water and ecological beings through decolonizing and anti-oppression practices.
Her research focuses on climate justice and the local food system. In 2023, she co-led a Climate Justice Field School for senior sustainability planners and policy-makers at the City of Vancouver in collaboration with the Solutions Lab and a renowned group of cultural and social justice practitioners. She is currently part of an interdisciplinary team working on a project called Mapping swiya, which draws on shíshálh ways of knowing to re-envision stories of time and place. Laura is co-leading the Circular Food Innovation Lab, in partnership with numerous food businesses, food rescue organizations, health authorities, food justice advocates, Squamish Nation and City of Vancouver Solid Waste Services.
Laura is an affiliate of the Emily Carr DESIS Lab. In 2021 she was honoured to receive the Ian Wallace Award for Teaching Excellence and recognized by Sierra Club BC for Exceptional Leadership in Climate Action. She has published and presented papers internationally at PDC2020 (Participatory Design Conference), PIVOT: A World of Many Centers, Cumulus, AICAD and ServDes. She holds a Master of Advanced Studies in Architecture from UBC. She lives with her family in Vancouver, BC – unceded xʷməθkʷəy̍əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territories.
Publications
Tide Places, Shumka Centre for Creative Entrepreneurship, 2025, with Lou Sheppard, Laura Pold, Jefferson Alade, Alison Boulier, Danya Gorodetsky, Liisa-Lota Jõeleht, Germaine Koh, Eknoor Matharoo, Elise Marie Olesk, Asmus Soodla, Sakeena Soni, Sonja Sutt, Aurelia Grace Talmon, Kail Timusk, Parumveer Walia, Brie Watson and Senaqwila Wyss
Sharing Power: Codifications and Collective Learnings from Vancouver’s Climate Justice Field School, ECU DESIS, 2023
Practicing Neighbourly Responsibility, Occasional Press, 2022, with Jean Chisholm, Meghna Mitra and Mickey Morgan
Place-Based Responsibility, ECU DESIS Lab, 2021, with Jean Chisholm
Micro-Care: Small Acts of Resilience for Living Within the Earth’s Carrying Capacity, ECU DESIS Lab, 2020, with Monique S. Carr, Jean Chisholm, Avi Farber, Oluwasola Olowo-Ake, Jacquie Shaw, Jess Sung and Julie Van Oyen
Satellite x DESIS Report and Archive, Emily Carr DESIS Lab, 2020, with Nura Ali, Naomi Boyd, Annie Canto, Jean Chisholm, Zara Huntley, Morgan Martino, Josh Singler, Garima Sood and Lauren Thu
Designing for Public Space Phase I Report, ECU Shumka Centre, 2019, with Charlotte Falk
Writing
Cole, L., Kozak, L. Shifting and sharing power in urban climate justice work: experiments in transformative learning in Vancouver, Canada. npj Clim. Action 3, 118 (2024).
Higuchi M., Kozak L., Nichols E., Raphael L., Peeling Back the Layers: Prototyping
Systemic Transformation through the Circular Food Innovation Lab, ServDes 2023: Entanglements
and Flows, PUCRio, (2023)
Chisholm, J., Kozak, L., Shaw, J., and Van Oyen, J. Reinforcing Networks of Place-based Care and Resilience, Cumulus Roma 2021: Design Culture(s), Series 7, vol. 2 ISBN
978-952-64-9004-5 (2021)
Kozak, L., Chisholm J., and Falk C., Sticks, Ropes, Land: Confronting Colonial Practices
in Public Space Design, PDC2020: participation(s) otherwise, Universidad da Caldas, Manizales, Columbia (2020)