The IHT's Amelia Gentleman (no known relation to Philip Gentleman) discusses the world's growing need for architects and urban planners.
Of the planet's six billion people, three billion live in cities, of whom one billion live in urban slums.
Seventy percent of architects come from the developed world but 70 percent of the work is in the developing word.
9 Comments
Architects and other designers will have no effectivness until society values design.
Education of architects & planners is an infinitesimal part of the problem. I think this article is misguided in its focus on architectural education and should focus on education period.
To build decent cities, then everyone, not just architects, need to learn at least a basic appreciation of design, the creative problem solving process, and its application to issues such as housing or global urbanization.
I was just going to post this in the news.....
You beat me to it!
Design value doesn't seem to be the issue...
I mean everyone values sanitation and public transportation etc...
Looked at separetly these would be infrastructure projects..
However, perhaps the issue is that the Architect (or at least some) need to become the Maste rBuilder again?
Also, it seems as if perhaps teh article should reallly be discussign urban planners?
Or, perhaps these are all unnesscessary distinctions?
Sanitation and public transportation need to be designed, not just engineered.
Architectural design, or graphic design, or interior design, or urban design, or lighting design, or furniture design, or industrial design are not the issue. Design, creative problem solving, is the issue. Until it is valued designers will not be effective.
I'm thinking of design in a Bruce Mau/Massive Change/Buckminster Fuller type of way.
But my question is if the services are valued...
Then where is the difficulty?
Everyone wants sanitation etc right?
Is the point that "they' are willing to have it without it being designed?
That seems as if it is an impossibility...
Even these services or any as you have pointed out need to be designed before implementation...
If so, then where is the question?
No-one wants a bad product,..
The "valued" or "good" design should be a given
Right?
That's a sobering article. Both in terms of the future of the planet (2 billion more people in only 20 years?!?) and in what the recent emphasis on starchiteture/iconic projects tells people about what architects do.
Increasing pressures combine with decreasing resources usually equals violent or catastophic loss of life. I don't think its going to be pretty.
Money quote:
"But there was concern about the ability of universities, traditionally resistant to change, to transform themselves in time. "Another 35,000 arrive in the slums of Brazil every month. You can't wait until Monday to tackle this," Siew said.
John Vinocur is on vacation."
I think this is a miscue. The premise is that the slums are an architectural or design problem. Why are economic/social/political problems supposed to be solved with architectural solutions? Is the problem providing adequate housing and shelter really the same as designing it?
This is not to underscore the power of architecture, but to hold it accountable for the ills of overpopulation? Rediculous. That's as if to say that the spread of infectious disease could be solved through architecture. An interdisciplinary approach involving public health, economic, political, social, educational, scientific, and cultural solutions have to come together to tackle these kinds of issues. It's upsetting that architects are vilified artistically when the willingness to allow and accept progressive formal experimentation in architecture is reflective of a cultural open-mindedness.
Lets not forget about our social responsibilities as citizens of an exponentially shrinking globe. But lets also realize that the solutions for our world reside not within a singular specialty but the coalescing of talents across disciplines and a willingness to to execute and experiment with change.
nam,
"No-one wants a bad product,..
The "valued" or "good" design should be a given Right?"
Wrong, just look around you.
Ants,
"That's as if to say that the spread of infectious disease could be solved through architecture. An interdisciplinary approach involving public health, economic, political, social, educational, scientific, and cultural solutions have to come together to tackle these kinds of issues"
Exactly my point. It can't be solved through architecture, but it can be solved through design.
"No longer associated simply with objects and appearances, design is increasingly understood in a much wider sense as the human capacity to plan and produce desired outcomes".
http://www.massivechange.com/about
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