To Bee Or Not To Bee
These reading brought up a lot of questions for me this week. As architects, what should we do or what can we do for society and our community? Is it our duty to make these societal changes? Who do we aim to service: the local or the global? Is it even our place to make these assumptions about society and our role in it as architects? Can we be the one who make the change?
Mockbee had a lot of really interesting point that kind of tackles some of the questions. He says that if we see somewhere we can help we should, if we see opportunities to help the community at any scale we should, and since we have this point of view and training as an architect we should use our abilities to the fullest to help our community whether that is political or social involvement. These are all point that I think we have heard a lot here at Clemson and for the most part I agree with them. Given that our profession has the ability to affect the world on so many different level and we (hopefully) have the knowledge to mediate these effects, we should prioritize the communities, people, and environments that needs our help the most by helping where we can.
Mockbee, however, brings up another interesting point from is time at the AIA conference and his interaction with Michael Hopkins. The speak about what are the implications of their work, on both the world and their clients. Mockbee mentions what I previously stated while Hopkins says that maybe its not our place to make these larger decisions for society. This is what has got me thinking so much about our stance in architecture. On one hand we have this level of power that can effect a lot of people socially, politically, etc. and on the other hand, maybe we shouldn't mettle in these issues if we have no stance or complete knowledge of the situation.
I have also struggled with these questions. Without trying to sound like I have a big ego, I think that architects have a lot of knowledge about a lot of things. We study how to design with empathy and try to focus our designs on the context of the site rather than trying to design the coolest, out of the box building (thanks Clemson). I know other schools may not focus on this as much and maybe architects are not the sole answer to these questions. Maybe we do need to step back and allow the public to step in, but I do believe we should have a say or at least a suggestion to answer some of those questions you listed. This is potentially why it is important for architects to take leadership positions.
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