Myra Lara Takes A Whimsical Look At Infill Housing

Local queer, Latinx artist Myra Lara held a very well attended art opening at Hybrid_Space last week. Not Even Barely Legal: (Desperately) Creative Infill Development included a mix of architectural sketches, comics, and is grounded in activism. Myra Lara is a thoughtful, talented artist who is foucsed on education and advocacy for spatial justice.

The art exhibit was a fantastic intersection of accessible entry points for people to think about zoning, maybe for the first time. It also included some urbanist inside jokes that would satisfy any policy wonk. For example, she designed an exclusive “snug club” wearable patch. I found this to be a fun tongue and cheek allegory to counter to existing neighborhood groups, themselves often exclusive groups that perpetuate exclusionary zoning of big lot detached single-family​ homes. Instead of watching a dry presentation about converting parking to housing, Lara demonstrated the possibilities through using the color yellow to highlight current use versus future use of limited land in our cities.

Lara told The Urbanist that she is working to “reframe the conversation” about what it means to share the city. She wants to “make it accessible through making it visually interesting. Alex Brennan, a Capitol Hill renter, quipped, “This exhibit says everything I want to say about Seattle, but better!” Another attendee said, “I’d never thought about this before. It made me think about (the housing crisis) differently.”