HOMEMAKING is the Directed Research Lab led by Associate Professor Marcos Parga and Assistant Professor Omar Ali at Syracuse University’s School of Architecture.

The lab explores how architectural design can challenge social norms and shape more equitable, resilient, and sustainable futures. Working at the intersection of research and practice, HOMEMAKING develops projects at architectural and urban scales that respond to urgent global issues through local interventions, engaging a wide network of interdisciplinary collaborators and scholars.

At the core of HOMEMAKING ’s mission is a commitment to rethinking domestic space — the places where we dwell and the relationships they embody. Through lectures, design studios, seminars, and workshops, we empower students to become active agents of change, questioning how architecture can respond to shifting social dynamics. The lab critically examines evolving ideas of labor, care, ownership, and family, understanding the home as a site of negotiation where political, cultural, financial, and environmental forces take shape.

This digital platform serves as an open-access repository of the lab’s research, projects, and collective discourse. More than just a documentation tool, it is a forum for ongoing inquiry into the relationship between architecture and social transformation. By placing design in conversation with history, politics, and everyday life, HOMEMAKING seeks to inspire new ways of thinking about domesticity — and offer the possibility of alternative ways of living together.