An Architecture of Urgent Matters
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Pseudo live-blogging of a presentation by Maurice Cox at the GSD.
You can complain about the building codes, or you can get involved and change them…
Premise: there are some urgent matters, and some issues which can be weeded out which are not urgent. What you do has incredible relevancy when applied to matters which are truly urgent.
Two cases: one where you have the authority to make changes, and one where you’re leading, but nobody has given you the authority.
Maurice Cox grew up in Brooklyn, saw the decline and disinvestment within the community as it turned into a low-income neighborhood, and this influenced him to explore what influenced these changes and he as an architect could do to reverse this trend.
Thomas Jefferson equated design with happiness.
How to develop an architecture of trust when the public understands the implications of the tools architecture uses—typically planning and architecture are instruments of power. (discussed while showing how the downtown of Charlottesville, VA was razed and rebuilt with the “downtown of business” in mind.)
Using design for its transformative power. Thinking about the risks involved (political and otherwise) related to change.
Charlottesville: why grab adjoining tax base when you can create your own. Look at the entire city as an organism, a whole. Finding a way to strategically increase density.
Design thinking is applicable to problems which may seem political or social.
After defeating plans for a maximum security prison near their town, the community came together and leveraged their capacity for action and design to redevelop and rebuild their own community.
The development process of six years was one of matching their values to reality. Within the community, learning the tools and developing the capacity for transformation—there must be a sense of urgency behind it.
Richmond, VA – a ten-year process of change, zero-displacement, mixed incomes. Involves over 15 different stakeholders.
New Orleans, LA – How to respond to the grass-roots, citizens desire to rebuild.
The Global Green Competition – rebuilding with a focus on green, sustainable designs. How to integrate services (childcare), hydroponics on the roof, and solar panels and louvers.
Moss Point – reached out to Maurice Cox to learn more about the redevelopment process. Engaging in a door-to-door survey to understand the concern of the community prior to resolving problems and designing.
Biloxi, Mississippi – FEMA’s new Flood Elevations and its impact on architecture. (Structures must be 12 feet above flood level—leads to houses on stilts with many stairs.) Design constraints…so how do you challenge those constraints? Through a design fair (sponsored by Architecture for Humanity), architecture models presented to the community and engaged in a dialog with the designers. They began to express preferences and make choices.
(Unfortunately, several slides were missing from his presentation due to some problems with Powerpoint)
QA Session: need to pace the changes at a rate people can absorb them.
Visual communication skills are the most effective tools in the process.