theory:05

"Never mind the machine, whose fuel is human souls" - R.S. Thomas

What do you hope will be true for your community (at any scale) in twenty years, and how can you use your professional life to help achieve that vision?

In twenty years I hope to gain a better understanding of the following question and be able to embrace it within a body of work that is somehow influential on future architects, artists, and designers.

How can we encourage sharing and positive dialogue about architecture and it’s ideology through architecture? What if we could create an architecture that fosters such a dialogue? What is that manifestation?

“Another Turn of the Crank” by Wendell Berry is a collection of essays regarding the degradation of farming, rural communities, and food economy, in a society which focuses on global economy and is desensitized to the local community. When reading Berry’s work I found myself substituting architects, inhabited space/built environment, architectural economy, and professional practice for farming and farmer.

“In their dealings with the countryside and its people, the promoters of the so-called global economy are following a set of principles that can be stated as follows. They believe that a farm or forest is or ought to be the same as a factory; that care is only minimally necessary at all; that for all practical purposes a machine is as good as a human; that the industrial standards of production, efficiency, and profitability are the only standards that are necessary; that the topsoil is lifeless and inert; that soil biology is safely replaceable by soil chemistry; that the nature or ecology of any given place is irrelevant to the use of it; that there is no value in human community or neighborhood; that technological innovation will produce only benign results.
These people see nothing odd or difficult about unlimited economic growth or unlimited consumption in a limited world. They believe that knowledge is property and is power, and that it ought to be. They believe that education is job training. They think that the summit of human achievement is a high paying job that involves no work. Their public boast is that they are making a society in which everybody will be “winners” – but their private aim has been to reduce radically the number of people who, by the measure of our historical ideals, might be thought successful: the independent, the self employed, the owners of small business or small usable properties, those who work at home.” - W.Berry, "Another Turn of the Crank"

theory:05

Finally able to get down to the library downtown and get a copy of Another Turn of the Crank by Wendell Berry. Refer to Herb's comment in my theory:03 boston post.

Herb, I will post my thoughts on his work as soon as I get a chance to digest some of his writing.

theory:03 boston

Recap of group writing session from Thursday 1.18.2007

"If the whole world were to follow you, Victor, where would you lead them?"

_AIA High School Design Competition
_giving something back to my community (high school) that lead me to architecture and helped to define my direction in life.
_tradition
_teaching something. (not necessarily academia) Informing about the practice and processes in design and architecture
_discovering passion
_rediscovering passion within myself and creatvity
_being able to hold on to that desire and passion translating into my daily work. By informing or contributing to others, I discover new things about and for myself.
_vehicle to so so: as an advisor and volunteer

Carli:
"How do address the amount of schooling required? A design competition may lend itself to art students - how can you bridge the gap to include math/physics students, or those who may be interested in construction, the environment, sociaology, economics, history -how can you open all young minds to the potential of an architecture education? Professionally can you be a mentore to someone, have them shadow you? How can you encourage undergrads to come back to Toledo once they get their degrees?"

Tim:
"I would like to be able to discuss or talk about any ideas you may have so that you can advance those ideas further. The firm I am in has a vast amount of resources that allow me to tap into for ideas. I would like to extend that to you. We have M/E/P engineers, environmental, civil, tunnel, scientists, etc. The quantity is endless. Plus all over the world."

Joe:
" Do you have a local high school "Explorers" program? I was involved in this as a high scholler. A mentor/professional volunteered time every other week and took us to local firms to hear discussions about their workm what inspired them. Also, how do you also intgrate "interns" in the office? Sometimes they lost in the daily grind - being able to be a good mentor to them too."

discussion diagram developed by affinity group: Rick, Carli, Tim, + Joe

theory: interesting thought from a student blog

Taken from a student blog on archinect...

"While I would agree that architects need to carefully consider our opinions and beliefs and not make simplistic normative judgments - at the end of the day, designers need to have opinions. Good designers are those who are brave enough to take a stand on issues and postulate ways in which the future might be improved through design." - http://www.archinect.com/schoolblog/blog.php?id=C0_398_39

...thinking on this statement. Simple enough statement. How does it inform my statement of belief... "Our work this semester is going to be aimed at a statement of belief that each of you will create, beliefs about your aspirations and goals and what constitutes good work, with some research to back it up. " - Herb Childress

~R

theory:01

"gates construct and manifest social relations - in this case , segregation." - Bickford

The manifestation of segregation, as noted in "ghettos" and "CID's" by Bickford, is a result of cultural and social viewpoints. In my opinion, segregation is not "constructed" or derived from our built environment, rather our built environment is constructed to serve the purposes of the culture it houses.

The rich build to keep the poor from taking what they have: greed. Social inequality is seen everywhere in our society and it's polity. The point that it exists within the notion of public spaces cannot be denied and this discussion serves to bring attention to those built inequalities, but thus far Bickford implies that architecture is one of the causes of such segregation. I would argue that this is not true. While I do not have the data and research to back such a counterpoint at this time, I still believe it to be closer to the truth.

In my experience, daily practice of architecture is reactive to the needs and desires of the client; it is not the proactive force that we would like to believe. Could it have this power? Possibly. It has in the past. But the daily practice of our profession does not embody this power or thought process on any level other than a contrived notion to justify someone's creative desire. However, I do believe that the built envirnoment can do just what Bickford suggests, but I do not believe that the majority of the profession embraces this notion. There are individuals and groups of individuals that take architecture to this level of social/cultural/economic responsiblity.

~R

As a side note, I found the beginning of Bickford's discussion disturbing and difficult to relate to given that I am a middle class white suburban male. I have a tendency to focus on the specific items in a discussion and understanding the overall message is sometimes a difficult task. In the end I agree with the authors viewpoint. I just do not agree with some of the specific arguements she uses.

edit 1.04.2007