The Architecture Lobby's Academia Working Group has announced this summer's Architecture Beyond Capitalism (ABC) School, building upon last year's focus on Capitalism, Labor, and Collectives. This year's workshop, taking place virtually July 18-23, is structured around the academic "studio" environment. 

As the pedagogical setting in which most of an architecture student’s and teacher’s time and resources are focused, studio will be explored as a key site in which to test how organizing and action for change can become foundational in architectural practice and posit other roles for the architect beyond the ‘designer.’  As a beginning prompt, the ABC asks: how do we understand studio to support and encourage activist organization? How might design be taught in ways that do not perpetuate and reproduce capitalist exploitation? 

The virtual workshop will ask participants to develop strategies for replacing traditional studios with new models that can contribute to positive change in the built environment. ABC School is free to enroll, and will be accepting registrations until June 1 (click here to register), so hurry up if you're interested in participating. 

To learn a little more about this year's program, I spoke with ABC School's Jessica Garcia Fritz and Tessa Forde...

Can you talk about the decision to focus on "studio" in this year's ABC Workshop?

The Architecture Beyond Capitalism School (ABC School) 2021 set the groundwork for The Architecture Lobby’s Academia Working Group. The working group is composed of current and former students and faculty. The first version of the school helped us think about the framework we continue to advance, which is the focus on structural issues within the architecture academy, the implications of a global discipline and profession, as well as the impacts of capitalist architectural production. 

As the Academia Working Group organized for the ABC Workshop 2022, we were also coauthoring publications, and discussing other initiatives for addressing the architecture academy. Multiple people, agenda, and ideas made us question the ambitions and themes for the next version of the ABC School. While interrogating the reciprocity between education and capitalism, studio came forth as a consistent theme.  

In architecture, studio is the pedagogical setting in which most students’ and teachers’ time and resources are focused. It emerged as a key site for testing how organizing and action for change can become foundational in architectural practice. How do we understand studio as a support for activist organization? How do we posit other roles for the architect beyond the “designer”? How might design be taught in ways that do not perpetuate and reproduce capitalist exploitation? These questions underlie the main prompts for ABC 2022. 

Has there been a shift in how the Architecture Lobby and/or the ABC School is operating in light of the increased general awareness of labor exploitation and overall increased energy toward activism within the young architecture community? Did the recent situation at SCI-Arc, highlighting endemic problems in academia and professional practice, contribute to this year's direction? 

The recent unionization efforts made by the workers of Architectural Workers United (AWU)- Shop Architects and the exposure of exploitative labor practices at SCI-Arc have certainly impacted recent conversations within all working groups of The Architecture Lobby. While the Academia Working Group’s decision to focus on studio for the ABC Workshop 2022 was made early in our planning, the approach and structure of the workshop was discussed alongside conversations surrounding these efforts.  

Within our own group, we were trying to overcome the paradox of addressing labor issues while preventing burnout from the free labor of planning, coordinating, and attending the next version of the school. The ABC Workshop 2022 was proposed as a non-hierarchical space for knowledge exchange with the underlying belief that all attendees have the expertise to bring to each conversation. We exchanged “School” for “Workshop” to emphasize the facilitation of conversations and sessions rather than teaching—although it has been difficult to step away from the term “School”. We opened the prompt to “sites of architectural” education rather than Universities and/or Schools. Ultimately, the emergence of the new model moved away from structured, deterministic outcomes and toward support of self-organization. When attendees register as participants, organizers, or facilitators, they are able to describe how they intend to engage with the topics surrounding capitalism and studio educational practices. 

Is it possible to enroll in the workshop while working, or studying?

Absolutely! One priority of the ABC Workshop 2022 Registration Form (deadline to register is June 1st, 2022!) is to gauge attendees’ locations and time zones. We understand the Workshop is a global event and are hoping to schedule sessions accordingly. 

Who is the typical participant in ABC School and what are the types of participants you hope to see more enrollment from?

Because we are addressing “sites of architectural education”, our hope is to engage an array of participants interested in discussing studio pedagogy from the architecture academy and profession as well as allied disciplines. This includes undergraduate and graduate students, university staff and faculty members, architects, designers, creatives, construction and/or fabrication workers, firm owners, clients, developers, nonprofit or non-governmental employees, federal employees, underemployed, and unemployed people. We want to emphasize that all voices are welcome and valid.

Will any outcomes of the ABC School be published or presented to those unable to participate?

The sessions of the ABC workshop will be recorded and made available online following the conclusion of this year’s sessions. A goal of the workshop is to disseminate revised studio practices in existing schools and/or governing institutions and to create a handbook for changing studio pedagogy. Coauthoring publications has become a primary method for the Academia Working Group to reflect upon the first version of the ABC School and to project and organize for the ABC Workshop 2022. Although we have several in-progress publications, we are excited for our dialogue about ABC School 2021 to be featured in Log 54: Coauthoring. We are planning to continue coauthoring and disseminating the outcomes of ABC 2021 and 2022.