Architect or Mediator?

 

“The state, the private market, the families themselves, NGOs, because nothing on its own will solve the problem. And that was pretty much the case with Santiago’s last big earthquake and reconstruction. That’s why we started a participatory process. We had to channel different sources of funding in order to rebuild, and in that case, there was not only scarcity of money, but of time.”

    Alejandro Aravena says that participation in architecture is not a happy-go-lucky situation where the community holds hands and peacefully comes to a decision. The building of the forest in Santiago, Chile, was a result of a strenuous and intense participatory process. Many solutions to the flooding of the river were debated, and many of them were politically complicated. For example, some wanted a wall to be built to stop the flooding (despite evidence that it would not work) because that meant money in construction contracts. However, Aravena's team discovered a seemingly unrelated issue of community was the lack of public space and access to the river's privately owned shores. With the ability of trees to absorb the water runoff while also resulting in public space, building a public forest was an excellent solution to the problem. It seems like common sense, but at the same time, the solution requires extreme coordination between the stakeholders of the situation. In any architecture project, there are a variety of people involved with conflicting motivations, whether it be financial or political gain, etc. Architects are responsible for advocating for the health and well-being of people in the built environment. Architects can help to unselfishly coordinate between the conflicting motivations of the participatory process in order to find a feasible solution.