For anyone who did not receive the most recent issue of CRIT magazine:
“Solutions?” Let’s talk.
Brett Roeth
This editorial was first printed in issue 71 (Spring 2011) of Crit, the journal of the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS). It is reprinted here with permission and may not be reproduced without the express permission of AIAS.
“Think globally, act locally” is the sine qua non of the sustainability movement. These four words express the fundamental idea of a powerful system of ethics: individual actions have impacts beyond one’s immediate and obvious surroundings. While this motto guides many of our decisions about our built and natural environments, it seems not to have infiltrated our political, social, and cultural behaviors as pervasively. We watch civil uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya with a certain mixture of awe, confusion, and distance, not fully understanding that our nation formed out of rather similar sentiments and actions 235 years ago. We denounce the oppressive regimes that leverage fear to control the populace – without realizing that a regime founded upon antipathy has risen in our very backyard.
I’m speaking here of Arizona, a state which students at three NAAB accredited schools of architecture call home. Within the last year, Arizona has enacted laws with the stated purpose of curbing illegal immigration and protecting American citizens. Yet many contend these laws violate not only the fundamental principles embodied in the United States Constitution, but the civil and human rights of millions of persons, non-citizens and citizens alike. A growing segment of the American population understands Arizona as a place characterized by xenophobia, violence, and incivility.
You might be asking yourself, why is this an appropriate topic for an editorial in Crit? What does this have to do with architecture? What does legislation in Arizona have to do with me?
These events have everything to do with architecture: architecture and society are inextricable. Buildings are parts of larger environs. They define the boundaries of ‘public’ and ‘private’, frame our perceptions of the world around us, and create spaces in which people are either welcomed or shunned. Just as they have ecological impacts, buildings have important (but often overlooked and misunderstood) sociopolitical impacts far beyond their walls. The discipline of architecture is affected by so many facets of society – the economy, the environment, law – and we must acknowledge this. Architect and educator Neil Leach has written, “Buildings should not simply reflect passively changing social conditions; they should be active instruments of change,” noting that “architecture is deeply embedded within economic and other structures of power.”[1] ...
