The Ambience of Social Relations:
The social relations that inhabit architecture are rarely the focus of architectural design and they are certainly much more difficult to represent than the materiality of architecture itself. In the 1970s these questions were an important counterculture within architectural thinking, but this focus receded in the 1980s under the pressure of post-modernism. Today the problem of spatial practice has returned through the influence of critical geography, and its critique of the austerity measures and militarization, which are part and parcel of the neoliberal political economy on which architectural production is based. In this context, architects are responding to contemporary social movements like Occupy and Black Lives Matter, in order to address existing spatial problems of segregation and economic polarization.
Moderator: Lola Sheppard – University of Waterloo
Miguel Robles-Durán – Parsons / Cohabitation Strategies
Bio:
Miguel Robles-Duran is an Urbanist, faculty member in the Design and Urban Ecologies graduate program at The New School/Parsons in New York and cofounder of “Cohabitation Strategies”, an international non-profit cooperative for socio-spatial development based in New York and Rotterdam. He recently co-edited/authored the book “Urban Asymmetries: Studies and Projects on Neoliberal Urbanization” that reviews the dire consequences that neoliberal urban policies have had upon the city and discusses possible alternatives to market-driven development. Robles-Durán’s areas of specialization are design/research interventions and strategies in uneven urbanization and areas of social urban conflict, urban political-economy and urban theory.
Abstract: Playgrounds for Useful Knowledge
Playgrounds for Useful Knowledge was a community-based experimental urban platform using play, games and performance to reveal, share and celebrate local knowledge produced in South Philadelphia, an area known for its rich cultural and ethnic diversity. A project by Cohabitation Strategies (CohStra), Playgrounds sought the restructuring of urban spaces by promoting new social relations across cultural and economic divides, with the objective of generating just and sustainable forms of collective inhabiting to confront the pressures of accelerated urban development.
Scott Sørli – Independent Research/ø-slash
Bio:
Scott Sørli’s trans-disciplinary practice concerns itself with moments when form and matter engage the economic and political forces that produce the city. He was co-founder of convenience, a window gallery that provided an opening for art that engages, experiments, and takes risks with the architectural, urban, and civic realms. He is also chair of Toronto’s peace subcommittee of the Nathan Phillips Square Community Advisory Committee. Sørli has taught architecture at several institutions, most recently in Cambridge, Jakarta, and Toronto.
Abstract: Distance. Pixelization.
Two graphs demonstrate a direct relationship between proximity and empathy: the first, from the infamous Milgram Experiment, demonstrates that resistance to an order to torture rises and falls along spatial and sensory vectors. The second, from Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s book “On Killing” extends the premise into the playfields of sex and war. This paper examines drone assassinations as a component of an American war assemblage that is extended spatially and attenuated sensorially. The pixelization of the drone “pilot’s” control interface is a tactic of distanciation and attenuation that has also been designed. The outcomes of this design work include high civilian casualty ratios, low operator risk, and a numbing of empathy.
Mejay Gula – U Chicago Arts / Rebuild, Chicago
Bio:
Over her years of experience as an architect, Mejay’s practice has focused on the adaptive reuse of forgotten buildings in Chicago. Since 2011, she’s worked for artist, Theaster Gates, and his nonprofit organization, Rebuild Foundation, focusing on arts and cultural redevelopment in underinvested neighbourhoods. Recently she has folded her design and construction work into the University of Chicago’s Place Lab team, who’s effort has been to document and demonstrate urban ethical redevelopment strategies initiated through arts and culture.
Through her work with Theaster and Place Lab she’s honoured to have work on several projects, including the Dorchester Arts + Housing Collaborative, Kimbark Studio, Currency Exchange Café, Black Cinema House, and The Stony Island Arts Bank, which opened this past fall as part of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial.
Prior to her involvement with Theaster’s work, Mejay was a project architect for Landon Bone Baker Architects. Her experience with the firm honed her knowledge of affordable housing development projects and renovations of historic buildings in Chicago communities.
Abstract: Neighbourhood: Building from Social Context
Blight has been a systemic problem in Chicago’s south side for decades. Banks pull out, schools pull out, churches pull out, hospitals are underfunded, and residents opt to leave the moment they have the money to do so. Ironically, Chicago’s action to combat blight has been to demolish buildings that have repeatedly lapsed in building violations and mortgage fees. This, in combination with the housing market crisis, not only has had major effects on the urban landscape, but has presently erased blocks of cultural history, sense of legacy, and the hope for future development.
There are neighbourhoods on the south side of Chicago that have repeatedly been included in plans for redevelopment. Words like renewal, transformation and redevelopment come to be experienced as empty promises. Well made plans that rarely materialize into architectural, social and economic transformation for communities.
We believe that creative structures have a responsibility to address social needs and make available cultural opportunities for people who have often have been left out of the upside of economic and cultural growth.
This talk will go over a series of observations and lessons learned over the 5 years practicing as an architect for artist, Theaster Gates, Rebuild Foundation, and Arts and Public Life and their endeavour to be a good neighbour.
Respondent: Marie-Paule MacDonlad – University of Waterloo