Architecture without Architects

Subsidiarity is the principle that decisions and action be operated by the least centralized competent authority or simply put, operating at a local level. People today are growing restless with big business, big government, big box, big everything. Movements rooted in supporting local and trying to build up what is around them are becoming more and more popular. A good example of this today can be seen in agriculture where local farms and farmers markets are being more common place. This notion that people can have power to control their locality, environment and region is looked on as the perfect freedom.

This paradigm shift is of great interest to architects and designers alike and the idea of user defined spaces is becoming more evident in design. Look at school design. More and more spaces are designed to be flexible and to reflect this political action of being able to define one’s own environment.

Probably the greatest expression of these political sentiments are from the past, seen in architecture that was built using a vernacular architectural language, not designed by architects, but responding by to the needs to the user, the environment and the local language developed over time. Indeed it is hard for us designer to create this sort of richness in design, because we often have a top down attitude, thinking about how our concept or design idea can be expressed rather than on how we engage in the language of architecture which is the most perfect manifestation of our political and cultural values.