Going Fishing

“Dalrymple lays the blame for the fact that Western civilization is being demolished from within unrefutably with a government that overestimates itself and an elite that is blind.”

“At some time designers and government officials, caught up in self-imposed restrictions on their powers of imagination powers, may erect a structure, build a symbol or realize a utopia. “

These two quotes from “It’s the Architects Fault” I feel speak to a current issue in social housing in America where the government comes in, finds an architect, and builds housing for people with low income the quickest and cheapest way.  This leads to the mass production of housing which as we know from the text does not succeed.  The world is not made up of uniform people with uniform lives, we are a beautiful and individualized people that are all different and require different things and so we need individualized housing.   

 

As a starting idea or question what if we start with this idea. So to create an individualized society we as architects need to get as much input from the individuals living in the public housing we design and mandate that any government input on the design be discarded. Yes the gov. will set how much they will pay but in that becomes the individuality.  We can take from the examples of housing were the occupant built the portion the gov. did not pay for and that becomes a beautiful thing, and while the occupant is building the rest of their house they are learning a new skill.  (We can help them learn how to do it or honestly they can watch YouTube tutorials and figure it out.)  People are remarkable and can do just about anything if they put their mind to it and in building out your house and learning how, we can push for the inhabitants of these new houses to get better jobs in building the gov. side of these houses or with contractors. Going back to the old parable of give a man a fish he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish he will eat for a life time.  Mandating people to learn these skills will both build confidence in themselves and help them improve their financial situation, but it starts with us as architects reaching out to the gov. and to the community to help them get started.