ARC3720H S
Instructor: Aziza Chaouni
Meeting Section: L0101
Wednesday, 12:00pm - 3:00pm

This course will introduce students to case studies of socially engaged architecture practices while developing in parallel as a class with the humanitarian aid organization Humanity Crew (www.humanitycrew.org) a mobile, safe room structure to be used for psychological support in rescue boats, shorelines and refugee camps for psychological support.

Today, socially engaged architectural practices are an emerging and diverse architectural typology that aims to redefine architecture from a market-driven profession to a mix of activism, philanthropy, and social enterprise. These practices’ approach embraces a set of values including social equity, poverty reduction and environmental protection.

Traditionally, architects have depended on clients. As such, they are ‘service-providers’ for someone else who defines the goals and targets of their project. While the role of clients is still key to the survival of architecture as a profession, more and more architectural practices and design professionals are recasting their role away from the service-provider / moneyed client paradigm. Instead, they are creating partnership with non-for profits organizations, educational institutions and international aid agencies while taking an active role in advocating for and defining projects which are socially engaged, from the grounds up. By doing so, they are developing practice models that are more resilient towards economic fluctuations, which are exacerbated by the economic crisis, surplus of architects, the scarcity of clients and the fierce competition within the discipline. Also, by reaching out to under-represented ‘clients’, these practice models bridge the gap between the wealthiest 1% of the population, who can afford architectural services, and the 99% remaining who cannot, but still direly need them.

Within this landscape, architectural historian Simon Sadler notices 3 broad types of socially engaged strategies. The first type can be defined as a self-help approach, which encompasses the work of the Chilean NGO Elemental, that proposes re-housing of squatter settlements through partial DIY techniques, and the NGO GA Collaborative that focuses on local capacity building.

The second type is philanthropic voluntarism, performed by ‘socially engaged’ practices of different scales and scope such as: the NGO Open Architecture Collaborative (former Architecture For Humanity), Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation, or smaller architectural organizations like Enlace Architecture. These practices engage with extreme humanitarian crisis such a natural, disasters, wars and refugee displacements. Interestingly, with the rise of crowdfunding, progressive partners and social investment, firms initially dedicated to socially engaged projects, such as Mass Design Group, Toyo Ito and Associates, Latent Design, GRAFT, Asante, have evolved into hybrid firms that have the capacity to take on both for-profits and pro-bono projects.

The third type, grassroots, bottom-up initiatives that seek to re-invest urban spaces such as Parking Day (initiated by San Francisco Firm Rebar) and to involve local communities in the active definition of their public spaces, have become staples in many metropoles in both the North and the Global South. Along the same vein, Do it Yourself (DIY) pamphlets for architectural and urban design interventions, are reshaping the flow of knowledge between architects and clients. In addition, design schools in the North have developed specific programs with a focus on social engagement, such as design-build programs or research/ studio units dedicated to addressing problems of the Global South through design (ETH Zurich, Harvard GSD etc…)

Concomitantly, numerous books, conferences, exhibitions and awards have been incensing these new modes of architectural practice. However, amid this growing enthusiasm for the renewed role of architecture as a social agent, severe theoretical problems and challenges arise. Indeed, the ‘social’ remains a fuzzy notion, as it encompasses a wide array of endeavors and strategies.

In his seminal edited volume The Routledge Companion to Architecture and Social Engagement, Farhan Karim questions “[…] if social engagement as a topic of investigation is indefinite and pluralist, and has so many loose ends, then how can we even create a common platform to discuss this topic?” How can we determine which forms of design practices are ‘socially engaged’ and some others not? How do we assess impact before, during and after project delivery? What are the limits of the social role of architecture today?

This seminar will attempt to answer these questions by testing the research and hypothesis developed in class through an applied design project, in collaboration with the NGO Humanity Crew and its co-founder child psychiatrist Essam Doad.