Aravena's Common Sense
Aravena's Ted Talk on Community Process as part of his architectural philosophy is both inspiring and terrifying. The scenes from the Constitución town hall meetings showed the reality of community planning process that at its best is source material for NBC's hit sitcom Parks and Rec, and at its worse deals with issues of classism, equity, and the imminence of the climate crisis.
Where Aravena's team makes a name for themselves is not in their goofy bedhead haircuts, but in their sensibility and approach to arrive at "Common Sense" solutions in architectural interventions. Their test for common sense in architecture is in distilling the complex (financial, social, climactic, etc.) challenges for any project into concepts that are feasible enough to talk through with anyone.
His example of the housing challenge he took on with Villa Verde, is boiled down
into a sketch done on the back of a napkin.
This skill to be convincing and concise is far from common and comes from decades of experience and learning from the environment he lives, works, and develops in. Something about "it takes a village to raise a child"...
Aravena rejects Voltaire's claim of "common sense is not so common" and steps down from any platform he has built to instead listen and work to resolve the concerns of the people to be affected by his intervention. Now, how the hell do we learn to do all that?
Diego, the simplicity of Aravena's solution also caught my attention. What impressed me the most was his desire to work and listen to anyone who the project could potentially have an impact on in order to make everyone feel heard, happy, and to provide solutions to not just the current issue at hand but to related, longer-lasting issue's that have a greater impact on the community and the environment.
ReplyDeleteAravena is very convincing in his simple solution and I agree to your point that his ability to concisely portray a problem is definitely a product of practice and expertise. I think sometimes it is easier to boil things down to a simple diagram for the people who don't study architecture, but sometimes it is worth it to give the whole truth. Just because we simplify the problem doesn't necessarily mean we have convinced the people of the solution. Unfortunately, there is a fine line between oversimplification and overcomplication.
ReplyDeleteDiego,
ReplyDeleteI also had these thoughts after watching the ted talk from this week. I think it is definitely a product of practice when someone is trying to be able to talk about a problem. I thought that it was really cool how he wanted others to participate and let those ideas impact his projects. I think in the professional world it is very hard to be able to listen to all of the ideas and opinions because it would take so long and be practically impossible to incorporate every single thing.