Collective Sufficiency: Community and Technology
During the fifth year of architecture education at Temple University, students are required to write a thesis document on a topic of interest that has a correlation with architecture. As someone growing up in Philadelphia, social class played an important role in my life. The initial thought for my research project was based on this notion of class, and to think about architecture’s capability to redefine Philadelphia’s class structure through an urban network of social and technological systems. This idea was initially developed though the reading of two books before the beginning of the semester, The Failures of Integration, How Race and Class are Undermining the American Dream, by Sheryll Cashin and Limbo, Blue Collar Roots, White Collar Dreams, by Alfred Lubrano.
The discourse of architecture and class led me to begin my research in three specific topics: housing, information technology, and learning methods/human interactions. I evaluated these themes through detailed case studies. The interesting diversity that this topic raised led me to much more than just architecture books and periodicals; sociology and anthropology books became crucial in understanding the nuances of this subject.
Research in architectural education is made manifest through precedent studies of well established architects, which help one visualize and understand other architects thought process for a similar project, building methods, and more importantly how people interact with specific types of architecture. As stated in my thesis document, the following studies were chosen for their relevance in dealing with issues related to how people learn in unique environments, how technology plays a role in people’s lives, and how people play a role in technology no matter what their background, and also a study of the spatial attributes that allow different forms of interactions to take place between individuals and groups. This was studied through research in Montessori Education with a focus on one school in Amsterdam, the Seattle public library’s method for information and book retrieval, and research in Cohousing in Denmark and the United States.
