This post is brought to you by Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc).

Tom Wiscombe, Chair of the Undergraduate Program at SCI-Arc, hosts a series of B.Arch Salons—informal Friday gatherings held at Cafe Americano across the street from the school. A recent conversation was facilitated by Wiscombe and moderated by Tony Avila, a fourth year B.Arch student. It focuses on the role of social media in our lives and its impact on design thinking. The members of this discussion include four other fourth year B.Arch students—Ann Gutierrez, Hannah Lee, Erik Valle, and Tucker van Leuwen-Hall. They are developing their own personal interests in architecture by way of a “proto-thesis” project this Fall. In the 4A Studio, students define their architectural positions as individuals and as a generation as they prepare to defend those views within the discipline.

Members of the conversation come from diverse backgrounds, giving them a wide range of experiences and perspectives. Ann Gutierrez was born in Mexico City and began her architectural education at Universidad Iberoamericana; she later transferred into SCI-Arc as a sophomore. Ann is interested in architecture’s ability to produce culture through the engagement between space and society. Fascinated with theater set design and geography, Hannah Lee is a Korean-Canadian student who transferred from the University of British Columbia to explore her deeper interests in architecture at SCI-Arc. Tucker van Leuwen-Hall grew up in Boulder, Colorado, and is intrigued by architecture's plasticity and ability to operate differently at scales from the tiny to the urban. Erik Valle is a California and Arizona native who is inspired by Wright’s Taliesin West, Soleri’s Arcosanti, and Moss’ Samitaur Tower. He is interested in the implementation of the arts in the world of architecture, exploring and creating new modes of representation in the built environment.

Students today are part of an academic environment that is influenced by an ever-expanding cultural consciousness. Platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest have dominated the ways in which we absorb content and ideas from academia and the discipline as a whole. Prior to the last two decades, projects were primarily disseminated via institutional publications. While this still occurs today, social media has become a new platform where students have the ability to instantly share their work with the world. As a catalyst for this discussion, we question the significance of sharing work online, and more specifically: What is the current state of social media as a platform for generating architectural discourse? Can productive theory and criticism live inside social media?

HANNAH LEE: The curious dual nature of architecture students is one reason why sharing images and intellectual discourse is such an important factor in the learning experience. Being in my early twenties in architecture school, I find myself scrolling through social media and other internet references more than I am looking at books and other printed media. As designers, the desire to search for inspiration and share what we’ve created is a method in which we formulate our academic projects. We search, study, produce, and present—whether we present in front of a jury or on social media. It’s a new kind of presentation. This can be harnessed into a focused platform directed toward intellectual discourse that pushes for both individual and communal development. However, this is not the case most of the time. Internet trolls and anonymous pessimists tend to make social media platforms problematic. The eagerness to share drawings and images is abated in fear of unproductive—even devastating—critiques. Therefore, in order to make social media a productive platform for sharing knowledge and intellectual discourse, one cannot conflate personal relationships and intellectual interests. A good aim is niche intellectual conversation with peers who share similar interests.

Similarly, my studio project this semester deals with the idea of conflating home and garden inside one enclosure, and it has led me to ask where the difference lies between privacy as an individual and privacy in a larger social sense. This project attempts to tie together these two forms of privacy. In the same way, social media must be structured to be able to house personal interests separate from intellectual interests, although it is all under the same roof. Although social media seems to be a desolate junkyard of shit-talking trolls now, as future architects, we are optimistic thinkers who are designing the future world in the best way we know how. While social media is not the ideal platform for intellectual discourse, it has the ability to reach millions of people around the world within seconds. And while it is an incredible tool for exploring our curiosities and accessing information, it often leads to the problem of the “unqualified expert.” Social media can be a useful tool for reaching a wider audience and being able to receive instant feedback; however, the lack of intellectual regulation is palpable. One way of regulating the audience, at least, is deciding which social media app to post on.

TA: How do we determine what is valuable in architectural discourse? Is it obscured by social media? What effects, if any, does social media have on determining value?

HL: Social media by design has been made to level the playing field in terms of the value of posting; however, it creates its own hierarchies. The number of followers, likes, and shares boost the level of interest, and this is what people outside the field use to determine whether something is “good” or not. Because the value of one user’s opinion is theoretically equal to another’s, these conversations are equal. This is challenged by the hierarchies created within by giving users with more followers, views, and likes a wider reach and influence. Therefore, the one who determines value in any post or discourse is the individual user. It’s on them to decide.

ANN GUTIERREZ: How is value perceived and understood in an age when social media and immediacy introduce a flat ontology where all content is reduced to a single plane? When all opinions, thoughts, projects, and images are located on the same conceptual point, is the perception of value obscured? One way of understanding value in our age is to say that all things have value (object value), yet that value is not revealed and lives purely on the phenomenological level, which effectively cancels any relationship it could have with society as it is never available. Implicit value equals no value. Secondly, value of existence is only revealed when given by someone (subjective value), which would reduce value to specificity; value cannot be created.

What does this mean for the world or architecture? It means that we must devise a new way of understanding our environment that allows us to reintroduce dimensionality to content. The problem with social media lies in the fact that infinity of content obscures all content through sheer expansion. It is time to introduce a new mode of understanding that deviates from the idea of the “one ring to rule them all” and become more diverse in our perception so that we can create value in our society and in architecture. The duality created between social constructs and architectural value seems to be the most crucial projector of dialogue in the discipline at this time. The work I’m exploring is focusing on the relationships and folds that emerge through the attempt to mediate hierarchies of form, space, interior, exterior, program, and scale. A house is one of the most complex typologies, and its nature inherently proposes contradiction in space. Its individuality implies whimsies and singularities that detonate disorienting organizations that clearly reflect the manner in which the subject/object relationship detonates dimensionality. It is the tension produced by a discording dialogue that combines diversities as a way of producing new value.  

TA: So you believe that value should not be reserved for an exclusive collection of ideas. As an alternative, we should look at all work in an ontologically flat manner—not assigning hierarchy over ideas. Do you think social media lacks the ability to create this level playing ground? If it is lacking, do you think the introduction of text expressing specific ideas embedded in shared content could add value?

AG: I think that social media will inherently produce two dimensionality in content. Take Instagram as an example: The photos posted by my friend’s ridiculous aunt have the same potential as the ones posted by my favorite studio. Which content would you say is better? Which demands a higher value? This is the point where value ceases to be inherent or just given through existence and radically shifts into subjectivity. In previous times, there was a sequence of high-ranking men that would dictate the value of all things and then we would all just take it as it comes; there was a hierarchy in the importance of opinion—this is what social media eradicates. You try telling my friend’s aunt that Atelier Bow Wow has more cultural and social value than her cat's pajamas! But what does this mean to the architectural discipline—one that was, for so many years, structured around the ideology of the grand master who passes down judgment and value onto the rest? Does the flattening of power mean the end of architectural discourse? I think not. I believe that the introduction of a flatter plane will provide the playing field for a much more diverse conversation; it will give way to the infection of other disciplines and the potential to elevate the discourse into a more dimensional space.

TA: What do you think about sharing ideas with other disciplines through social media platforms?

AG: I don’t think that social media proposes such a structured dialogue where one consciously shares ideas with other disciples, but it’s through the availability of content and the diffusion of hierarchical power that ideas indeed transfer. This unconscious trade of work has been happening for the last 10 years or so, and the ramifications of this have already been felt. Just look at the way architecture is being taught and produced today. There is no longer one ideal practice; the starchitect is dead. Architecture today is a particularly hard thing to define. I think that we are at a point in time where architecture is bubbling in a pot that’s about to explode. It’s going to be on our generation to see how the splatter congeals.

HL: By borrowing from other disciplines, architecture projects represented through text and images can also stir up conversation within other related fields, such as graphic design, photography, philosophy, applied science, film, etcetera. Widespread conversations that start to blur the line between disciplines push for communities of thinkers to develop smaller niches within and across disciplines. This allows for us, as designers, to post and share diverse work that is not necessarily architectural, because social media, by design, has been made to create tags and references to other categories. A social media post that can only be categorized as an independent entity does not exist; in the act of producing text or images, it has already taken on multiple influences. Therefore, social media is acting as a breeding ground for interdisciplinary interests, possibly forming never-before-seen offspring that can develop their own identities outside of the disciplines that exist today.

ERIK VALLE: Architecture is ambiguously direct, permanently ephemeral, and modestly pretentious. Architecture is an agglomeration of contradictory and complementary things. As a novice in architecture, I am faced with a stark dichotomy between the profession and the discipline, which poses questions that are critical of architecture and the architect. To what extent does being an architect define your relevancy in the world of architecture? As we are constantly bombarded with the framing, reframing, repositioning, defining, redefining, interpreting, abstracting, erasing, organizing, and creating—the overall solicitation of the architectural Idea—I find myself drifting in the vast corridors of "La Biblioteca de Babel" in which the endless shelves are full of every possible architectural idea that has and will ever be conceived. Arguably most of it is just gibberish contained in neatly bound packages with provocative covers. As one drifts through the library, the corridors seem to expand indefinitely. This lexicon of ideas is manifested today in the culture of social media. It facilitates communication through public sharing, which is presented in a capitalistic manner subject to the consumption process. The plane of social media flattens the hierarchy of the architectural idea, allowing the individual to align themselves to tribes of specific thought that foster positive feedback loops of their own concepts.

The way that the discipline interfaces with social media platforms such as Instagram creates an environment where the architectural idea can be originated by anyone. The hierarchy of how ideas are translated and conveyed is taken from the top-down approach of the expert to the novice to a new forum where the description of a post assigns fake concreteness to ideas.

TA: This mode of feedback is interesting, but do you think that it is productive? Or should there be some other way to productively challenge ideas?

TUCKER VAN LEUWEN-HALL: Social media platforms have changed the way we interact with one another in many profound ways. Given that architecture is a discipline that requires constant communication with peers and other professionals to realize a building, social media has undoubtedly had an impact on architects and students. The question “Is this productive?” is not as easily deciphered. Perhaps it is best to look at social phenomena that are directly linked to social media and draw parallels with how these unique phenomena could hinder or aid in the creative process. I am less interested in the ability for social media platforms to allow people to reach others more easily or whether the platforms provide more accessible ways to create capital, but rather if they foster creativity and progressive ideas.  

Feedback loops are a very prominent phenomenon in our lives due to social media and have many effects on society at large. The echo chambers that platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have created are also referred to as “cultural tribalism,” a phrase coined and explained by Rob Kitchin, an author, professor, and European Research Council Advanced Investigator at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. Do these small echo chambers aid in the creative process? Cultural tribalism could be a way in which one incubates unique ideas and aesthetics. If social media becomes the primary platform for consuming architectural discourse, it will upend almost every manner in which we have processed architecture for hundreds of years. Publications could be replaced by particular accounts that solely cover a single aesthetic. Aesthetics or ideas could develop within smaller branches of architecture with the ability to void the aspects for which one does not have an appetite. Could this lead to a new type of regionalism that has less to do with geography and more to do with aesthetics and ideas? This would undoubtedly foster many new aesthetics that have little to do with one another, allowing various veins of architectural discourse to form.

A fallacy regarding social media that many believe is that these platforms are democratic. It is tempting to say that these different outlets provide an open field in which traditional ways of stratifying a population or creating hierarchies no longer exist. This could not be further from the truth. Social media has become a capital-generating machine due to its popularity. Because they all act upon algorithms, it is easy to create inequality with a simple click. Architecture has a heavy relationship with capital. Any utopian who supports social media on the basis that it is more democratic and equal is mistaken.

Temporality and our perception of time have undoubtedly been altered due to the ability to continually be in contact with others and the ease at which we can access information. I am hesitant at best to say that this is beneficial to architects. Take the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street demonstrations: They were successful in filling the airwaves with their messages, but the movements eventually deflated quite rapidly. You could conclude that this was because of two reasons: the pace at which the mainstream news feed has drastically increased and social media’s ability to reach enormous amounts of people. However, social media does not allow these events to evolve, change, and germinate ideas that are more impactful than what can fit within 140 characters. Once the message is out, there is little depth to draw on when the movement is hit with resistance. A longer duration is required for a movement, whether it be in civil rights or architecture, to become strong enough to withstand the onslaught of criticism. Posts of work that are young can be quickly attacked, copied, and critiqued beyond repair, leaving little room for delicate concepts to spawn larger ideas.

Incentives are the reason social media has been as successful as it is. Justin Rosenstein, who was part of the group of designers at Facebook who helped create the like button explains, “The main intention I had was to make positivity the path of least resistance, and I think it succeeded in its goals, but it also created large unintended negative side effects. In a way, it was too successful.” Incentives are not necessarily superficial or wrong in any sense. Many societal structures are based on incentives. Do the incentives offered by social media allow creativity to expand without hindrance? Again, the concern is similar to the discussion regarding temporality. If an architect posts a project he worked on for a very short period—one that has little intellectual backing—and then subsequently posts another project that has very high intellectual merit and it gets fewer likes, will he continue with his intellectual pursuit or drop it for projects that are more ‘likable’?

Social media enables users and the world to rethink processes, relations, intents, and concepts in a very profoundly different way than before. So inevitably it will create space for new architectures, but it will also see the end of others. Change is inevitable, but architects must make sure that it benefits the creativity and plasticity of architecture and does not hinder it.

TA: We seem to generally doubt that architectural discourse can find a way to productively utilize social media platforms as a way of advancing theory and discourse. However, we cannot deny that it affects us as designers. Where do all of you draw inspiration for your work? Do you embrace ideas that you've seen outside the studio or do you close yourself off when working?

HL: For my studio projects, I steer away from drawing direct references to social media posts. Rather, when I am stuck in the process of thinking, I use social media platforms to distract myself from fixating on one thing to see what other architects and designers have done to resolve their concerns. This has led me to stumble upon architects and designers pursuing similar or drastically different interests that I may have never known about. Therefore, social media is a useful tool for advertising and gaining a wider audience.

TA: Hannah, although you mention not borrowing ideas from other architects or artists on social media, I think it would be fair to say that representation does indeed get most of its precedents from stuff like Pinterest and Instagram. For example, whether or not you are aware of it, the incredible renderings you had done with layered glass and other materials for your midterm have a striking resemblance to the renderings showcased on the website KooZA/rch. A lot of the work they curate tends to be very controlled and presented through collage-like two point perspectives like yours.

TVLH:  Ann’s point regarding the inability for social media to create a well-structured and meaningful discourse is also my main hesitation with using any outlet as a platform to share work, though I have indeed attempted to do so. I do think that the power of saving, commenting, and perhaps sharing images amongst groups of people are the strongest features that Instagram offers. But these features can only be used with the minute images that can be posted in the first place.  

A concept I have been thinking about recently is collecting versus curating. I’m drawn towards pages that have a more curatorial stance rather than a collection stance. What is interesting within Instagram is that some accounts create curations based off of aesthetics, ethics, and smaller nodes of specificity within disciplines. An example of an account that curates its work around digital art is @lucidscreen. Another account that curates posts based off of ideological stances is @theychangedus. While he posts other’s work or announcements, @nick_knight curates content that reigns within his personal aesthetic. I prefer to look at pages and people’s work and their posts as a whole. I would compare it to reading a book instead of skimming over the first page of multiple books. Some would make the argument that the scroll feature on Instagram allows you to stay up to date with more recent posts, meaning staying current with the world (whatever the world is).

AG: I think that the idea of curating versus collecting—or maybe another word would be promoting—is crucial. Instagram and other similar social media platforms disassociate meaning from the work posted and therefore only serve in the manner of advertisements. When my classmates or teachers post work—either previously done or specifically created for the platform—it divides the content: image versus meaning. This is, of course, not a bad thing, and in many ways Instagram is the ideal billboard. Many of the people I know are provided with a way publicize themselves and their work through it. Instagram offers an easy way of accessing many audiences and being seen by others. but it is never the main source of the value—it is only the transition or connection point between the meaning and the audience.

TVLH: As a student, the resources that have a profound influence on the ideas I incorporate into my projects are actually quite retro in some regard, though their access is more contemporary. I still think that literature is the medium that will expand one’s thoughts the most. There is nothing that can compare to reading a theory or a text from another architect. Second to that would be lectures, which have been increasingly available via YouTube and Vimeo. Prolific ideas spring from reading and listening. Technology, without a doubt, provides these resources at greater convenience, yet ironically people use these mediums less and less. I suppose I will close by saying that the discipline of architecture is changing. For that matter, every design discipline has changed. The question I have is whether the foundations upon which each discipline rests are eroding. And if so, upon what new foundation should architecture rest? Would it even be architecture without its origin and foundation? Is it pointless to resist the erosion of tradition, or must one fight to hold on to it?

TA: I think that, as students, we need to be critical of our mediated environment. The nature of discourse is changing uncontrollably. It is up to us, the users, to define if there is any significance or future in all of this unfettered access. Clearly, most of us here still value traditional forms of discourse, however augmented, or even disturbed by, social media feeds.

Keep up with the progression of these students' projects by following @sciarc on Instagram or the students’ personal accounts, which are noted in the captions above. SCI-Arc students will be available to share more about their work and their SCI-Arc experiences on Saturday, November 18th at the school’s annual Online Open House. To register for the event, visit SCI-Arc Online Open House. The deadline to apply for the fall 2018 semester for first-year B.Arch students is January 15, 2018, and the deadline for students seeking to transfer from other architecture programs is February 12, 2018.