Study Architecture 
ProPEL 
Author(s): Armando Rigau
Over recent decades, the global surge in civic activism compels a closer look at architecture’s complicity in perpetuating or challenging the status quo. A reflection on the state of the built environment through the posthumanist thought of Stephen J. Jackson and Peter Sloterdijk fuels a design pedagogy centered on renewal, urging the adoption of alternative methods to engage with today’s decaying urban fabrics. How can we teach students to embrace repair as a foundational principle? Which design tools best enable students to distill the complex relationships between buildings and their contexts? These questions were explored in design studios held in Berlin, Germany; Seville, Spain; and Santurce, Puerto Rico. In each location, students encountered seemingly intractable urban problems that heightened their understanding of the discipline as an agent to repair and restore the obsolete and disenfranchised. Through diverse representational media, particularly photography, students synthesized personal encounters with critical analysis to weave compelling architectural narratives advocating for social change. Ultimately, the coursework enabled students to act on the built environment as custodians: preserving, repairing, and adapting existing structures to foster societal resilience.
https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AM.113.67
Volume Editors
Sara Jensen Carr & Rubén García Rubio
ISBN
978-1-944214-48-7
