Engaging Communities in the Design Studio: Considerations for Accountability from Five Case Studies
While many aspiring architects enter the profession with goals of creating better worlds, architecture supports capitalism, an economic system with its effects of environment degradation, growing inequality, and exploitation. A key obstacle to challenging the relationship between architecture and capitalism is the positionality of the architect. The design studio typically presents itself as a simulation of professional practice where the architect is the “author” of the design. Through an exploration of case studies from Ireland, Canada, the UK, and the US, this workshop asks: How can the design studio be transformed through “collaborative ethics”? What are strategies to establish and maintain accountability as designers?
When community design workshops started in the 1960s, architecture students and faculty immersed themselves in local communities, helping to define them; then, they formed long-term partnerships and collectively figured out what is most useful to the community. In some cases, this didn’t involve new-build designs and rather meant organizational structures to protect inner city neighborhoods from urban renewal. This translated to the decentering of the architect as provider of professional expertise. By the 1980s, however, the rise of conservative politics and neo-liberal economic policies in many countries paralleled the fading away of earlier countercultural movements. As a result, community design studios declined and those that remain take the form of, in some cases, students building small-scale structures for public spaces, and in others, students going into impoverished racialized communities to build a modest house or another structure for them.
This type of community design re-centers the architect yet again, without addressing structural disenfranchisement and disinvestment. As such, it may be considered a “band-aid” solution that perpetuates the status-quo. If the design studio can be re-envisaged as a context for fostering relationships with envisioned communities, what are the responsibilities toward those communities? And how can these be achieved in the context of short-term (e.g., 13 week) semesters and course credit-grading expectations in the university setting?
Please see the library for readings and resources for this event as they are made available.
This event will be facilitated by:
Ipek Türeli
Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Architectures of Spatial Justice
Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture, McGill University
Canada
Samantha L. Martin
Associate Professor
School of Architecture, University College Dublin
Editor-in-Chief, Architectural Histories
Ireland
Robert Mull
Professor of Architecture and Design
University of Brighton
Director of Quality and Innovation, Publica
Visiting Professor at Umeå University, Director of the Global Free Unit
UK
Anna Goodman
Assistant Professor
Co-Coordinator, Urban Design Certificate
Faculty Fellow, Center for Public Interest Design
School of Architecture
Portland State University
USA
Sergio A. Palleroni
Director, Center for Public Interest Design
Professor, School of Architecture
Portland State University
Co-Founder, Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative
Director, BASIC Initiative (basicinitiative.com)
Co-Founder, SEED Network (seednetwork.org)
USA
Sara Stevens
Associate Professor
School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
University of British Columbia
Canada
Please note: This event may be recorded. The recording may be made public after the close of ABC 2022 and some of the imagery and content from this session may be used for academic publications, resources and other digital or print purposes. By attending this session you are consenting to being recorded. Please get in touch with an organizer if you would like to discuss this, or would like to attend but maintain your anonymity.