The American Institute of Architect (AIA) has issued a statement denouncing the inhumane conditions that have been discovered over recent weeks across the country at the detention centers where undocumented immigrants and asylum-seekers are being detained.
The conditions as described by numerous media reports and congressional fact-finding missions to detention facilities make clear that these buildings are not designed to handle the sheer numbers of people in them nor do they sustain the health, safety, and welfare of their occupants, many of whom are women and children. Above all, the misuse of these buildings and the impact on occupants in them are contrary to our values as architects and as Americans.
Pointing to the organization's Code of Ethics, AIA urges that "the built environment promotes and preserves the health, safety, and welfare of every individual, and fosters universal respect for human dignity."
In addition, AIA argues that architects are well-prepared to "promote the design of safe, dependable, and healthy housing or shelter, including detention facilities."
Lastly, AIA calls for "building inspectors and others (with appropriate authority) to proactively evaluate [detention] facilities to ensure that they are in full compliance with applicable laws and regulations to ensure the health, safety, and welfare of inhabitants," adding, "Consistent with applicable laws and codes, we urge swift correction and mitigation of all building code violations and that existing building codes be used to ensure the safety and welfare of all.
This is a characteristically weak statement from the AIA. Time and time again making the bare minimum of noise to appear to be on the right side of history.
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If you continue to support the AIA, you are complicit in the construction of concentration camps.
if you continue breathing and consuming resources, you are complicit in the destruction of the natural environment.
If you continue using false equivalency, you are complicit in the dumbing down of discourse.
So, essentially what you're stating is that because we breathe, camps good?
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Would not the AIA be better served criticizing those Congressmen who very recently refused to vote for an appropriation to improve these centers? What a spineless organization - always seeking out the virtuous, smug position, and never, ever taking a meaningful stand on anything.
These centers should not exist. Money is being stolen from other resources to pay for these "camps".
Let me see if I got this right...
Left: allow in an infinite number of people and provide infinite welfare
Right: lock up an infinite number of people and provide infinite corporate welfare to private detention centers
Libertarian: don’t provide welfare to anyone, create safe and easy immigration system, the market will self regulate.
Yup, libertarians are correct again.
People are finite.
resources are finite too. It’s incredibly naive to think that free everything isn’t going to attract more and more people and eventually run out or get drastically cut to peanuts.
Eh, the resource strain argument assumes that the new arrivals will not contribute to the society they arrive into. The entire history of American immigration suggests otherwise.
Anyway neither side is saying what you said they're saying & I don't care to elaborate further. The AIA statement is weaksauce.
I never said they won’t contribute. Where did I say that? I said the left is running on free everything, and you can’t give free everything to an endless influx of people or the resources will get strained. A libertarian approach actually relies on the idea that they will contribute and find work. Supply and demand. Not hard to understand. The left isn’t saying anything of substance...just lots of feelgoodery.
Complete and fucking unproveable statement , from our resident hypocrite.
Unless of course free = tax the fuck out of the cock-sucking takers?
Explain your math?
Any examples of open border welfare states?
“The entire history of American immigration suggests otherwise.” Yes exactly lol. Free markets work good.
Socialism always leads to tight/closed borders.
I never said they won’t contribute. Where did I say that?
Assumptions are unstated, that's why they're assumptions. More people is only a strain on resources if they contribute less compared to the people already here. That's simple math.
"Free everything" is a misnomer as well. The left wants something of value for what they pay for admission.
They are promising free healthcare, housing, education, etc...all stuff that by your own (assumed) narrative most Americans cannot afford. Assuming they become instantly economically on par with average Americans a growing population in any democratic other than the top 5% will place strain on a finite resource space. To be clear, I’m not arguing against immigration, I’m arguing against entitlements. In a free market society with only basic welfare for the indigent, immigrantion is not an issue. My ideology works fine with highly permeable borders, yours doesn’t.
"Free everything" is a misnomer as well. The left wants something of value for what they pay for admission.
And that has a cost associated...and it’s finite...
People are finite.
Liberal maths: Pizza is finite and people are finite therefore if we put up a sign for free pizza there will be enough.
You keep saying "infinite" and "free" and neither of these terms is applicable to welfare or immigration.
Free isn’t my term, it’s the term being used by nearly all of the Democrats. “Infinite” may be a poor choice of words, unrestricted is more accurate. The new position of the left seems to call for unrestricted immigration. Fine by me, just not sure how that jives with the generous entitlement system that they are also proposing. Market economies like the US don’t really need immigration quotas because the market self regulates. When demand for labor is high or entrepreneurial opportunities are available immigration goes up...when/if work or opportunities dry up immigration slows down. When we start to guarantee everyone here certain entitlements, first people will be knocking down to door to get here, second the more who come put a strain on the system. Also, this causes resentment among those who are already here. Entitlements create a sense of entitlement and always lead to nativist attitudes when newcomers threaten resource space. I don’t see how this could possibly be sustained for long. Europe is a good example...we have leftist welfare states who open borders...the natives become resentful and far-right nationalism takes root.
Dangerous system imo. I favor highly permeable borders, low barriers of entry for work and entrepreneurship, and adaptable urbanism free from top down regulations. china town, little Italy, etc wasn’t the result of govt cronies, itsthe result of immigrants being creative, self organizing, and being entrepreneurs.
This is a characteristically weak statement from the AIA. Time and time again making the bare minimum of noise to appear to be on the right side of history.
Solving problems is no longer important. It’s all about branding.
I've been fighting this on twitter and FB all day and I only have two things to say.
One, it's a huge leap forward that AIA would even issue a tentative statement publicly on this topic because, as has happened (and as happens to anyone who partakes in online discourse these days) they know they're going to be lambasted both by those who think they're going too far and those who think they aren't going far enough.
Two, it's a hugely, hugely complex issue, but I can't help being reminded that Al Capone was brought down, finally, on tax evasion charges.
I get that the AIA is in a pickle here, but it is pretty tone deaf to suggest that simply following codes and getting an AIA-member architect to design the detention centers would make it all ok.
Edited to say that I'm not suggesting that your statement is tone deaf Donna, but rather the statement from the AIA.
I don't get it really, I've worked with building code officials, and they're notoriously political, they can bend anything to their interpretation; AHJ. We've abrogated our responsibility time an time again, we've let these fascists in state houses all our the US use our building codes to wipe-out abortion providers - We did that. Now we're going to trust that building officials are going to be the ones with the foresight and responsibility to see this is done humanely? I don't see it. The AIA, time and time again has proven that you can bring a horse to water, and all the kicking in the world won't make them drink.
I'm fine with the all of the above approach to this issue, but I refuse, absolutely refuse to believe that younger, more progressive leaning members in the AIA are doing anything but watching their backs, while children die, and families are damage forever.
There were no good Germans.
The AIAs position does little...b3s position does nothing...what do you do with unaccompanied minors? Foster care? Let them out on streets alone? I’m all for comprehensive reform that will solve the problem by making immigration safe and easy, but AIA is an architecture organization. They are trying to make the conditions better until policies change. Pulling an AOC and refusing to provide funding because she can’t wave a wand and get 100% open borders and free everything for everyone is not helpful...it’s actually doing more damage to the situation and the ability to find actual policy solutions.
The moral question is...when does a line get crossed between improving and enabling...does a doctor refuse to treat people in detention centers because detention centers are bad? Doubt it. Does that really help? I’d say the line is the people in detention and whether your intervention is welcomed or not. I find it hard to believe that they wouldn’t welcome someone trying to reduce overcrowding, better beds, etc.
This is the problem with politics as a religion...it becomes about good vs evil rather than the grey area we all actually occupy.
Your dumbfuckery knows no boundaries. Let me get this right, doctors refusing to do what they're duty bound, is morally equivalent to architects refusing to be involved with concentration camp construction? Did the AMA suddenly become a purveyor, or supporter of human vivisection and torture, the way the AIA lines it's pockets with design professionals heavily involved with making profits from prison and concentration camp designs? Pray tell, which version of the IBC would I find the occupancy for concentration camps?
Everday Architect, the bit about designing future detention centers rubs me the wrong way, badly. I don't kjnow how to address it, because it *is* tone deaf, at best. But there's also a subtext here that by not following codes the facilities are breaking the law. If the AIA can leverage acknowledgment of this law-breaking into a friend-of-the-court type statement that can be used in a national lawsuit to shut down the centers, excellent.
B3, you remind me of that Cathy Newman lady in the “so you’re saying” memes. The AIA is not saying that you need to accept commissions to build detention centers. They are trying to hold them accountable based on codes and basic standards.
So yes, there is a moral equivalency of doctors helping people in centers by promoting decent health conditions and architects helping people in centers by promoting decent building conditions.
Concentration camps fall under, Assembly, or Business, or is it Industrial, or maybe High Hazard?
Donna, I'm not sure why I would expect otherwise, but the statement sounds like an architect trying to justify why their error shouldn't result in a change order by pointing out something related, but completely irrelevant, in an attempt to distract from their own mistake. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but if you had build the detention centers using an award-winning AIA member architect following the building codes, this wouldn't be an issue."
I'm not holding my breath that any centers get shut down by code officials for violations. The feds will just claim the local codes don't apply and the officials don't have jurisdiction. They'd be better off trying to get them shut down by suing them for violating the Americans with Disability Act. At least that's a federal law.
That is an excellent point, Everyday! Federal law vs. a zillion different small-town bureaucracies.
I’m pretty sure state detention centers, not the private ones, are on federal lands.
Reactionary politics is weak and anti-architecture. Architecture is about changing the paradigm, and offering new solutions that challenge assumptions we see in the toxic media. Leave the hackery to the NYT.
Active politics would ask what we need to end this evil system and perhaps how to show the contributions of immigrants on architecture. Government can play a positive role, by organizing new immigrants to work on the many projects we will need in the future—trains, green infrastructure, housing. Designers can highlight these past and future contributions and break out of this zero sum left vs. right politics.
What if we built the wall out of housing?
The wall should be built in the median of the Capital Beltway (I-495).
^ that's a start.
Nice way to imprison a whole lot more black folks.
Well-said, Chemex
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I agree in part Chemex. Why do we constantly assume that the federal govt needs to lead everything. The govt hasn’t done squat to uplift Italians, Chinese, Mexicans, etc..They need to gtfo of the way and let neighborhoods adapt, and small businesses take root. Since the early 20th century immigrants
have been lifted through entrepreneurship.
Think of the 1864 homestead act. Government gave immigrants and free slaves (?) land to settle and farm. They saw a need and connected labor to that need. Not great for Native Americans (who were already moved by then) but it shows how government can act in an organized non zero sum game. Not a anti-immigrant vs. disorganized immigration paradigm.
“Unless of course free = tax the fuck out of the cock-sucking takers?”
leftist: Military industrial complex, prison industrial complex....private detention facilities...blah blah...raise taxes!
Libertarian: how about stop feeding it...
Anyone who refuses to see the connection between this system and it’s funding mechanism is either blind of full of doodie.
The opposite of "bad" is not "no"
Fucking Libertarian douchenozzles think that after 100 years of American Interventionism, and destruction we can just retroactively practice the rhythm method, pull back to the "border", and not reap the whirlwind of a world we put into disarray.
That's not how it works. We broke it, we bought it.
You have no perspective.
You're devoid of reality, and live in a fantasy world where America can somehow put the ejaculate back in the tube. Now, fuck the fuck off, libertard.
You're both kind of annoying.
“Fucking Libertarian douchenozzles think that after 100 years of American Interventionism”. Should have listened to the non-interventionist...aka libertarianism 101
. Durp
In B3s America free alternative universe everyone is running through fields of lavender in peace and harmony...in reality half the world would look like North Korea...the other half would be controlled by actual Nazis.
I'm aiming for Mars and I'll take annoying. Libertarian ideas are more dangerous than Marxism.
Hahaha.
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