Engaging Communities in the Design Studio:
Considerations for Accountability from Five Case Studies
by Ipek Türeli , Samantha L. Martin , Robert Mull , Anna Goodman , Sergio A. Palleroni , and Sara Stevens
Tags: organizing , futuring , community , engagement , case study
Abstract
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.
Learning Outcomes
- You will question if design studio can be re-envisaged as a context for fostering relationships with envisioned communities, and what are the responsibilities toward those communities.
- You will evaluate how can greater community relationships can be achieved in the context of short-term (e.g., 13 week) semesters and course credit-grading expectations in the university setting.