Designing for the End Users

These past few weeks have been all about politics in architecture.  For me, the main take-away I have gained is how we, as architects, can potentially influence everyday life with our designs.  Not only by providing a shelter or a service, a fun place for people to go or a highly functional space, but also in a political and economical sense.  Architecture is a very powerful thing and can completely change the way a region functions.  It can be used to make political statements or influence the local economy.  That is a lot of potential power in our hands, which ties back into our previous topic of power and control.  We potentially have so much power with our designs, but how do we execute it?  How do we make sure we don't abuse it? How do we make sure that we even use it?  We discussed in class about how much influence we actually have as architects being that we are working for a client who has all the money and can therefore call the shots.  It just shows how much more complex of a profession we have got ourselves invested into.  I think that as we go out into the workforce, we need to keep this idea of how much power our architecture potentially has and make sure that we are conscious of our design decisions.  We need to be up to date with the politics of our area and make sure we are using our work to better the good of the end users, those who may not have a voice.