ADS3

Architecture and Activism

ADS3 sets out to explore ways in which architects can intervene in the field of
politics and critically engage with the contemporary urban conditions. Through a
series of experiments with the material and social fabric of London, the studio will
collectively probe strategies for an empowered practice of architecture: one that is
able to formulate its own questions, and to gain agency in the public sphere.
Notes on Architecture and Activism
Both during its production process and during its life as a product, every artifact
from a mobile phone to an Olympic stadium is caught in a net of social and
political relations. Its shape, its look, its value, or its use, all have a direct
influence on the fabric of people and things it is embedded in. There is no neutral
object, no objective neutrality. Therefore, there is no neutral ground for
architecture and design to stand upon: whatever the content of their practice,
architects and designers are always-already social and political agents.
Moreover, today architects and designers operate almost exclusively in the urban
field, characterised by the density and diversity of its constitutive relations.
Therefore, any production in the urban has immediately a vast audience, and a high
degree of influence.
The studio aims at raising awareness towards these field conditions of practice. We
will explore strategies to map and to navigate this field purposely, via a series of
experiments triggered by the theme of Architecture and Activism. The two terms
will be combined in two inter-related ways:
-Activism as architecture How to mobilise architectural theory and practice in the
field of activism? How can an activist campaign be thought of as an architectural
project, as fabric of relations between places, agencies, and institutions? What
does it entail to think of activism as a spatial practice?
-Architecture as activism How can architects intervene in the field of politics?
What is their potential agency as architects? Can architecture formulate its own
claims, demands, and above all, its own questions?
Through its different activities, the studio sets out to interrogate the meaning and
boundaries of its two opening terms as much a critique of architecture through
activism, than a critique of activism through architecture. Activism will be
understood not only in its strictest sense, as (direct) action against or in support
of a cause, but also as an activation of politics: the deployment of strategies to
gather people and things around a specific issue, to foster public debate, and to
negotiate changes. In this perspective, architecture becomes a valuable resource to
intervene in the space of politics.
Framework
The studio will engage in a range of activities:
-Via a series of architecture and design projects, we will develop strategies for
taking position and pushing forward a claim through architecture. At stakes in
these projects will be the use of design as a vector of meaning and agency, as much
as the development of representation techniques able to support a discourse in all
its breadth. The projects will include:
. Cartography of an Object: the analytical unpacking of an object (to be
chosen by each student) and the mapping of the network of social, political, and
material relations that crisscross it.
. Spatial terrain of activism: This involves the critical spatial analysis of
an activist campaign, direct interventions in the urban fabric, drawing of its
territories, its economic structures, its social and political networks, global and
local connections and mapping and drawing of its physical manifestation.
. Unsolicited Architecture: is conceived and realised by each student, it
comprises of direct interventions on site and in the city. The proposals are
public, physical and architectural manifestation that foreground and support a
campaign.
-a critical theory seminar, with weekly sessions of collective discussion around
selected readings, will help us generate a range of conceptual tools to be
mobilised in the different projects. The goal is to develop a critical
understanding of the field of practice of architecture, with a particular attention
to mapping the multiple agencies and processes at play in the contemporary urban
condition.
-regular visits to exhibitions, public events, relevant places and projects, as
well as guest lectures in the studio and student-led public forums, will expand the
horizon of the studios work beyond the School and stimulate direct experimentation
in the outside world.
- One-day workshops, focused on doing/making/producing, will foster collaborative
work among students and encourage the expansion of the studio into a collective
practice and agency.
Tutors:
Andreas Lang (andreas@publicworksgroup.net)
Torange Khonsari (torange@publicworksgroup.net)
Francesco Sebregondi (f.sebregondi@gold.ac.uk)