A Replicable Model for Educating Community Architects

Abstract

Contemporary community architecture and disaster resilience scholarship have shed light on the work of community architects, highlighting the features, merits and limitations of this practice in building community/disaster resilience through participatory design processes. However, a knowledge gap not yet bridged is how these community architects are academically trained to practice community-oriented work and how Schools of Architecture – through such training – catalyze community development in the cities in which they are located. In the current era of climate change and given the disastrous consequences of unequal post-disaster recovery and redevelopment processes, it is critical to have community architects who are able to cope with this new reality. Therefore, it is important to gain knowledge on how to train community architects and in this way contribute to the formation of the future generation of architecture students into socially conscious community architects who promote a more socially just built environment. The aim of this paper is to outline a pedagogical model for educating community architects based on an analysis of a case study in the USA, a place where much of this pedagogy is being developed, namely the Small Center. The Small Center functions as the community design center of the Tulane School of Architecture in New Orleans. The paper illustrates and reviews this pedagogical model through an analysis of a design/build studio at the Small Center that took place during the fall semester of 2021-2022. In this 14-week studio, students were challenged to design and build a 960 square foot outdoor teaching kitchen and water management strategy for a local farm to accommodate expanded educational events on site. The design team worked with the staff and stakeholders of the partnering farm on a project that connects people of all ages to their food systems and local ecologies at multiple scales within the completed project. During one-month ethnographic research with the Small Center, empirical data was harvested through review of project materials, semi-structured interviews with students, alumni and teachers and site visits to the farm. The paper shows how live community-based project pedagogy helps students take on some of the various multi-faceted roles of a community architect and effectively learn by doing. Students gain insight into the impact of community engagement and the challenges involved, such as a limited budget, communication within the project team and collaborating with non-designers. This research offers deeper insight into the pedagogical approach, teaching methods and the projects of community architecture programs in the USA. The paper outlines key takeaways and critical reflections from the ethnographic research and case study analysis that are relevant to Departments/Schools of Architecture across the Globe as they prepare the next generation of architects.