Designing for the Least Common Denominator
My particular hyperfixation for this week was on Samuel Mockbee’s Rural Studio. As a captivating person with a life story that resembles something out of a book, and an equally appealing sense of goodwill, his rural studio has been able to connect students with a demographic we tend to ignore through creative and efficient design. The studio introduces the students to the communities issues and people through a series of lectures to help them understand the demographic they’re working with which is primarily very poor. He had the students working with a couple in their 70’s taking care of 3 grandchildren with no indoor plumbing, ex convicts, groups of people that society has turned a blind eye to. But he really wanted this to teach young designers more compassion, understanding how to work with someone and really make sure your architecture is focused on achieving positive effects rather than positive intentions.
Im curious as to why more architects don’t practice in this manner or why schools don’t teach things like this more. I think Clemson has some strong building blocks with it in regard to the Design Build program in Charleston. I also think that we’ve seen firms achieve a similar effect in proof of concept with the inexpensive projects of Lacaton and Vassal, which have penetrated into cities which are even more monetarily driven.
When the cost of a building determines so much like rent, property taxes, etc., why do we rarely discuss in school how we can lower these costs both in materials and the construction process?
I agree that this is a conversation that needs to be addressed more in design schools. Instead of solely focusing on the efficiency or creativity of architecture design principles, we need to be more sensitive to the context and economic status of areas that our projects are happening - regardless of whether they are going to be built or not. I love how the rural studio makes the students dive in to real-world issues associated with the built environment, and see clients from a different, more empathetic lens.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this idea as well. This way of practicing should be more common. I have worked on projects that were for low income and it felt everyone’s attitude towards it was ‘oh we can’t do this because of price’ ‘we have to do this but we don’t want to’. We are a creative field, where did our imagination and design skills go on those projects?
ReplyDeleteThis definitely needs to be a topic that is discussed more, especially in school. We are given studio projects that push us to do the most innovative, creative designs, but I believe that projects like the ones that the rural studio does, are far more meaningful than anything we have done at Clemson. I think architecture schools need to offer studios that focus on this topic so we can see both sides of the design world. Also, I think it would help students understand that they don't need to design so over the top always because sometimes the most impactful things we can create, are simpler.
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