Beyond Homelessness; Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement
What is Socially Responsible Design?
Design Like You Give a Damn
INTRO
From: What is Socially Responsible Design?
Can the built environment and the process of its creation become a force for social change toward a more just, more equitable and more sustainable world?
Although much recent and current design seems to glide over social issues in favor of esthetic or formalistic concerns, the relationships of the social and physical worlds are intertwined and complex. The ways we fashion and use the objects and spaces of our lives are products of our social and historical relations; they deeply affect how we feel, think, behave and relate to one another. Thus, all aspects of design directly or indirectly control peoples’ behavior, feelings and thoughts – the built environment is a cultural, social and political product. Most often it is the product of the dominant culture and, as such, assists that culture in maintaining its hegemony. Designers, architects and planners often reinforce the existing order by shaping spaces and objects that support its interests of money and power and by creating its symbols. In this system style changes assume great importance and fuel theoretical debates in professional and educational circles, while concern for social issues diminishes. Indeed, the focus on style and formalism often masks controlling agendas. On the other hand, the built environment can be designed, constructed or appropriated to empower. It can challenge prevailing power relations. It can help people live fulfilling lives.
The student’s professional education begins with learning the prevailing mode of professional practice. More than the acquisition of knowledge, information and skill, this education is a socialization into a world-view. If future architects, designers and planners are to challenge the use of space and form to support practices of domination exclusion, marginalization and inequity, the process of education must be transformed. For only then will they address the issues of producing “radical creative space which affirms and sustains our subjectivity, which gives us a new location from which to articulate our sense of the world,” as Bell Hooks has written, that creates a better world for all people and that encourages human emancipation and fulfillment. The socialization process for emerging professionals in this field must engender social and environmental responsibility.
After two exhausting yet exciting days debating both the projects and the meaning of social and environmental responsibility, the review panel felt ready to offer its own ideas about socially responsible design. They requested that the following definition represent the consensus of the group:
“Socially responsible design celebrates social, cultural, ethnic, gender and sexuality differences; is critical of existing asymmetrical social structures and relationships of power and seeks to redistribute power and resources more equitably; changes society; continually calls into question its own social, cultural and philosophical premises and, through a continuing dialectic, seeks to ensure that its ends are consistent with its means; seeks in its process, to develop strategies for public intervention and participatory democracy.
“Socially responsible design recognizes that only those people affected by an environment have any right to its determination; avoids the use of mystifying private or professional languages; takes as its frame of reference the collective meanings of empowerment; recognizes that the process of empowerment can only be a process of self-empowerment, and that designers must engage in a process of mutually empowering experiences with the disempowered; recognizes that the process of participatory self-empowerment is a never-ending, ongoing struggle – that there is no “ideal “ or utopian state that can ever be attained.
“Finally, socially responsible design is not a marginal activity, but is rather the ideological touchstone of the whole design profession – from whence it takes its moral authority. It is socially irresponsible design which is a marginal occupation and should be ousted from the position of centrality in public life that it has usurped.”
Design Like You Give a Damn, Architecture for Humanity
“Architecture is a process of giving form and pattern to the social life of the community. Architecture is not an individual act performed by a artist-architect and charged with his emotions. Building is a collective action” Hannes Meyer, director of Bauhaus, 1928 to 1930 (36).
“Everybody wants the same thing, rich or poor…not only a warm, dry room, but a shelter for the soul” (50). Samuel Mockbee, architect
SECTION 1: THE FOCUS GROUP :: SENSE OF PLACE, FAMILY UNIT
Beyond Homelessness; Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement, Steven Bouma-Prediger & Brian J. Walsh
Design Like You Give a Damn, Architecture for Humanity
Of the world’s refugees: 49% are female and 47% are children (under 18) (59).
SECTION 2: THE PROBLEM
Design Like You Give a Damn, Architecture for Humanity
First Step Housing (184)
“In its latest project the group is pioneering yet another approach. In the late ‘90s outreach staff from Common Ground conducted a survey of the city’s chronically homeless population, typically men, to better understand why so many resisted city shelters. To their surprise they learned that many homeless preferred to stay – and pay and stay – in a lodging house. In fact, most lodging-house occupants were single males who had been homeless for three years or more” (186).
SECTION 3: CURRENT/PREVIOUSLY PROPOSED SOLUTIONS/SOLUTIONS CREATED BY OTHERS
Shelter for the Homeless (from What is Socially Responsible Design?)
Design Team: Jennifer Cohen, Valerie Dekle, Anthea Gianniotes, Stephanie Hough, Richard Hubacker, Joseph Minigozzi and Lana Patrieious
Advisor: Professor Gary Greenan,
“As architects, it is our social responsibility to contribute dignified, compassionate architecture to those in need of basic shelter.”
What is good about this design is how it considers vernacular architecture as part of the solution. It has a community centered construction grouping 20-40 people together as well as including exterior space to promote social support and security. The grouping of multiple individual buildings instead of one large shelter affords a sense of ownership and dignity to the residents. The materials used to construct each unit are based on standard industry sizes that encourage economic efficiency. This also increases the mobility while decreasing the cost of transportation.
However, this does not provide an answer to the overall housing problem; it only provides shelters with dignity. The structures are built on vacant property, but are not meant to be permanent. When development occurs in those areas, the shelters must be taken down.
