The Architecture of Agency

This week's topic has me feeling a bit conflicted. On the one hand, I applaud groups like the Rural Studio for their initiative and drive to help communities who otherwise might never receive the aid they sorely need. The communities benefit from the construction of new things that they desire, while students benefit from the hands-on education of building and engaging with communities. On the other hand, something just doesn’t seem right to me about their way of doing things. It is easy for me (someone who has almost no construction experience other than Solar Decathlon deconstruction of simPLY) to critique those who go out into the world and do the backbreaking work of building in a rural community. I can’t help but wonder, however, if in our drive to help communities we take away the agency from people who could otherwise be empowered to help themselves. To write their own stories. To build their own architecture. Is it better for young college students (who often have different backgrounds, privileges, and ability levels from the communities they come to serve) to insert themselves into a culture in which they have no place? Or should they rather focus on teaching the people of rural America, in the manner of Mass Design, so that they can better their own lives? Is there any truth to the old saying “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime?” I don’t know the answer to these questions, but I do think it is imperative that they should be asked.