Walking a Fine Line

Both discussions during class, and the most recent lecture by Michael Murphy of Mass Design Group brought up ideas of rebuilding cities and communities after political unrest, natural disasters, or other unpleasant historic events. This redesigning comes with a lot of complexities. It is important to understand how to rebuild, while still respecting and remembering the devastation that occurred before. 

I believe that one of the best ways to carefully walk the line between creating a positive change, and destroying the culture that exists in a location, its to live within the community that you are trying to redevelop. The best (and only) way to truly understand the complexity of an entire neighborhood of a city, is to dive deep into the history, culture, and people who reside there. 

This topic also relates to our current project in Haiti. Michael Murphy made a great point about working in developing countries. He stressed the importance of figuring out "what we have to learn, not what we have to offer". It is important when providing aid to countries rebuilding after a disaster, to not come in with the feeling of saving them and offering them solutions that don't make sense with the resources, climate, and culture that currently exists. By learning from the people first and foremost, an architect can be respectful of local traditions and cultures. On the flip side, the architect also has the responsibility to "pull people out of what they think they know, to something they dream they could have". It is also extremely important to not only give people the bare minimum of what they think they deserve, but to help show them that they deserve and could have even better. Again, these two ideas are a fine line that an architect needs to balance along.