Field Notes

Podcast: Design, Activism, and a New Generation of Architects

http://info.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek09/0731/0731rc_designactivism.cfm

Summary: The book Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism features 30 essays that embody community activism through design. In this podcast, Michael Crosbie, AIA, is joined by three of the book’s contributors: Katie Swenson, executive director and founding partner of the Charlottesville Community Design Center; Steve Badanes, Assoc. AIA, architecture professor at the University of Washington; and Sergio Palleroni, architecture professor at Portland State University.

Katie Swenson echoes a call for a new kind of architecture practice: “public interest architecture.” Far from simply diminishing the glossy, iconic design freedom that architects have enjoyed in the past, Swenson says such a re-orientation should stake a claim to the increased social and economic relevance of design and make an argument for how architects’ skills can improve everyone’s quality of life. Most fundamentally, such a transition towards increased social relevance will require architects to become involved in a wider spectrum of design and planning services so that they’ll be able to address social needs holistically and bring design interventions into people’s lives at a multitude of scales. Steve Badanes says his students today show increasing interest in the kind of practice that takes them beyond the top socio-economic tiers of people that architects typically work for, which harkens back to his own experiences as a student in the late ’60s when architectural community design initiatives began to develop along with the transformative counterculture of the day. Despite the weak design and construction economy, Swenson says, today’s design opportunities may lie in the $787 billion economic stimulus package signed into law in February. Here, she says, architects should look for opportunities to bring design solutions to underserved communities, like greening public housing and rehabilitating foreclosed properties.

This fall, Theresa Hwang will dedicate her architectural design skills to the fight for affordable housing in the Skid Row neighborhood of Los Angeles. Photo by Harry Connolly.

For Theresa Hwang, thoughtful design is not reserved for members of the loftier socio-economic echelons. Her philosophy embraces the everyday and every one. That ability to find beauty even in unlikely environments puts her in accord with her Rose Fellowship host Skid Row Housing Trust (SRHT).

“Because SRHT places an importance on high design,” explains Theresa, “it brings a sense of dignity and pride to the residents who previously had no safe place to lay their heads. Rather than create plain, cookie-cutter housing, SRHT partners with both emerging and well established architects to bring beauty and positive attention to a part of the city that desperately needs it.”

Theresa also balanced high ideals with hands-on practicality during her education. With a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she received an Unsung Heroes award for founding and developing a semester-long architecture and urban design studio for urban youth. Theresa holds an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering and Art History from Johns Hopkins University.

One of her first challenges with SRHT will be the Star Apartments. The mixed-use, commercial-residential, development is a first for SRHT.  The project extends the impact of the Trust’s supportive housing by drawing neighbors to its new commercial services, while continuing to serve the homeless. “This,” Theresa points out, “provides an opportunity to create areas of contact and inclusion between the homeless and ‘typical’ residents of downtown LA. This fosters integration and socialization, and begins to remove the stigmas of homelessness and poverty.”

The opportunity she has to expand her own horizons is equally exciting for Theresa. “Along with being a part of creating and designing new categories of housing, I will learn the entire process of the delivery of affordable and supportive housing.” That enthusiasm will return dividends to Theresa, her host and the communities they serve.

After years at Auburn University's Rural Studio, on September 2, Daniel Splaingard will join the Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation in Chicago.

The pursuit of his education in architecture has already taken Daniel Splaingard from Alabama’s Auburn University School of Architecture (including its famed Rural Studio) to the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, México as a FIPSE Scholar, and the Global Arts Village in Delhi, India on an Emerging Artist Partial Fellowship. As of September 2009, however, Daniel will call Chicago home for his three-year Rose Fellowship. While the Windy City’s climate may prove a bit of a change, Daniel is more than ready for the challenges of working with a company that, in addition to being a developer and redeveloper, serves as property manager and community organizer.

The attraction of Bickerdike’s all encompassing and democratic approach is clear for Daniel. “I believe in the power of collaborative design to transform ordinary budgets and building methods into points of pride and delight within communities. I look forward to being a member of a multidisciplinary team. Together we can better explore ways of integrating new technologies in order to improve the operation of existing properties and new construction, while being sensitive to the realities of management and tenant usage.”

Daniel will be an integral member of Bickerdike’s team, assisting in its acclaimed, holistic approach to community development, bridging the areas of project financing, design, construction, and property and asset management, as well as creating a model for an environmentally and socially sustainable single family home.

Much of his time will be taken with development and design of urgently needed affordable rental housing in an area hit by both foreclosures of multifamily properties and condominium conversions. For Daniel this will mean hands-on engagement during the full scope or work from community outreach, to financing and management of construction, through the LEED® certification.

His fellowship with Bickerdike, it seems, is bringing the world of community architecture to Daniel.