“Design is changing existing situations into preferred ones.” Herbert Simon

With most of the population lacking a voice in the design process, who is speaking for them?  Without the interests of the marginalized represented in architecture, those very communities continue to lose their depth, character and integrity.

“How can we quantify ‘justice’ in terms of design?”

By precluding the community from participation in design, architecture cannot take advantage of the idea that people can, and want to, shape their own world.  When designer acts as “expert” the solution proposed rarely has any chance of making a lasting, posititve mark on its intended community.

The SEED [ Social, Economic, and Environmental Design ] Network was born from the notion that “justice” must be integral to the design process – working in concert with environmental initiatives.  It’s mission is to “advance the right of every person to live in a socially, economically, and environmentally healthy community.”  The intent being that design would benefit from both professional and local knowledge.

“…while operating on the assumption that buildings will sove human problems, architecture is rarely considered in terms of its relationship to its users or its larger community.”

Alienation from our physical communities has caused the disappearance of the neighborhood.  Architecture must begin to operate under the assumption that the marginalized are more willing to invest in their communities when empowered in the design process.  Professionals must be held accountable at the social level – applying the same rigor asked  of the profession in environmental initiatives.

Reflective practice is the act of community-based design bringing, “practioners, artists, neighbors, students, teachers, and social and ecological activists to address urgent needs in communities around the world.”  The utilization of a community’s local knowledge is a valuable commodity for designers, bridging the gap between the professional “expert” and the society he or she is intendning to serve.

Professionalism should not be see as colonialism – architecture cannot exert its will on society.  Looking no further than Pruitt-Igoe and it’s promise of a urban renewal we can see where know-it-all architecture planning will take us.  Collaboration is the key to socially healthy and sustainable communities.

Essay by Barbara B. Wilson

Essay by José Gamez + Susan Rogers

[ Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism ]

Architecture can’t save the world, but it can mobilize it.

“Hope coincides with an increasingly critical perception of the concrete conditions of reality.  Society reveals itself as something unfinished, not as something inexorably given; it becomes a challenge rather than a hopeless limitation.”  Paulo Freire

When you take community out of design – you succeed only in lessening the impact of design on future generations.  The ribbon-cutting as the driving force behind design removes the occupant[s] global needs from the notion of a “successful” design.  Modernism removed design from the everyday social world – creating a lack of pride and ownership on the backend of the architecture.

“Modernism as a movement was discarded… because of the conflicting principles by which it was realized – namely, the contradiction between the goal of social change and those of market capitalism and institutionalized power.”

Postmodernism was born out of the questioning of established thought – but it never lived up to its promise.  An inablility to address broader social goals caused its architecture to become quite introspective.

Architecture continues to move more to the “middle” – to stake a political claim runs the risk of upsetting the normative condition and most importantly, alienating potential clients.  The “business side” of architecture, and the rest of the developed world for that matter, tends to handcuff design – creating the quest for cookie cutter solutions to a quite diverse set of problems.

“What is needed is an actively critical agenda that can inform the practices that lead to good design.”

The solution to the problem is constantly transforming.  The transformation form a top down design approach to one of social dialogue will take the cooperation of those who are challenging the status-quo as well as those who are firmly entrenched in the normative condition.

“When we pull our collective head out of the sand, we can no longer deny the undeniable; space and its making are political.”

In order to invite community into “community design” we must remove architecture from its pedestal and allow everyone to influence the process.  Envision the new Architect as a facilitator – questioning the fundamental goals of the design through each phase of the process.  Architecture must be present at the dinner table.

The reconstruction of the current system of education and practice would be in [3] parts:

“First, an understanding of the role of the market in realizing design should be integral to the education of an architect… Second, we must consider the power of Utopian thinking as a way to form a unified front… Finally, as a liberated process, architecture should illustrate the value of alternative spatial practices with a plurality of aesthetic and spatial modes of civic expression that facilitate a diverse set of public realms.”

How do thoughtful, socially responsive design and business coexist?  This new Architecture is about getting your hands dirty – not producing pie-in-the-sky solutions.

“Ultimately we must realize that acting in the world means taking responsibility for the consequences of [our] actions… The alternative is not to take any action and to accept conditions as they stand – and that is unacceptable.”

Design should not have an either/or.  The success of a work of architecture should not be based on an image in a magazine but rather how well it addresses the relevant issues and practices of a community.

“Along with the family doctor, dentist, local shopkeeper, and mail carrier, everyone would know a local architect, and they would know how she or he contributes to the greater good.  Until then, the doors of the academy must be thrown open and its ivory towers infiltrated and transformed by the real issues facing our society.”

The ultimate goal should be to remove the terms “have” and “have-not” from the design dialogue.