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- Title
PRIORITIZING ACCOUNTABILITY IN ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION: TWO CASE STUDIES FROM DESIGNBUILDBLUFF.
- Authors
CRANNEY, MATTHEW; WARNER, JULIA; MYERS, SHAY; BLYTH, ERIC
- Abstract
The common perception of the architecture industry remains dominated by the ideology of "architect as auteur." It is reinforced by ubiquitous, striking visual representations that most often define global practice. Memorialized in glossy photographs and renderings, the heavyweights of our built environment stand out as monuments, as if defying time. While much of the professional and academic institutions of architecture continue the longstanding pursuit of the monument, the tradition of Public Interest Design (PID) celebrates a messier process, namely the embrace of a mosaic. PID elevates not objects in space but people occupying space, the relationships they create, and the way they create them. Public interest stands above the monumental space producing architecture of temporality, event, contingency, chance, and dynamic movement. DesignBuildBLUFF, the University of Utah's graduate Design/Build program, seems to have planted itself squarely in between what we call the mosaic and the monument. It is housed in the School of Architecture, offering the opportunity for first-year Masters in Architecture students to spend a year working with a client to design and build a project. After the first semester designing and developing construction documents, the class moves more than 300 miles south to Bluff, Utah where they spend a second semester building the project as a team. The program was founded in 2000 by Hank Louis as an elective for students to get hands-on experience building their own designs in a place where building codes are much less restrictive (Navajo Nation). Formally integrated into the university's academic structure in 2013, the typical outcome of each program year is a newly built home for a family in need, designed and constructed by the students themselves. The Little Water House (2013) highlights the concept of aging in place. Lone Tree (2017) in partnership with Dennehotso Chapter has become the first recognized sweat equity project in Navajo Nation. Cedar Hall (2016) and Fire Mesa (2018) both serve as community spaces in the town of Bluff, Utah. Together, these projects synthesize a new path forward in the practice of Public Interest Design/Build. As four recent graduates of the program, we reflect on our experiences in two completed projects, consider the conflicting goals and limitations that drove our work, and offer strategies toward a better practice of Public Interest Design/Build.
- Subjects
UTAH; MESA (Ariz.); ARCHITECTURAL education; EDUCATIONAL accountability; UNIVERSITY of Utah; CONSTRUCTION projects; BUILT environment; SPACE (Architecture); CONSTRUCTION project management
- Publication
Dialectic, 2019, Vol 7, p24
- ISSN
2333-5440
- Publication type
Article