Papers by Edward Orlowski
All-Inclusive Engagement in Architecture
This paper outlines the difference in research methodologies undertaken by architecture students ... more This paper outlines the difference in research methodologies undertaken by architecture students in traditional design studio courses, as opposed to courses engaging in Public Interest Design (PID). An introduction is provided into the principles of PID, the primary characteristic of which is described by the recipients of the 2011 Latrobe Prize as work that “serves the public in some way, and that is not created for private interests alone.” There has been increasing emphasis on this mode of practice in schools of architecture, and the paper outlines the curriculum of a research-intensive public interest design studio course at Lawrence Technological University, where students develop and test their own tools for community based research and engagement.
In traditional studio contexts, students are frequently presented with projects lacking real ‘clients’, and only an abstract interpretation of potential users. This creates a level of disconnect to the project. Given that direct user input is essential to PID work, student research must move beyond typical ‘abstract’ analysis of site, program, context, etc. By analyzing internal case studies exploring the comparative impact of various tools utilized by students to gather information and facilitate dialogue with community partners, this paper explores the biases inherent in some of these methods. Reflection from both the instructor and some of the approximately 110 students who have participated in this course over a ten-year period reveals moments of both success and failure. This paper underscores the importance of inclusive processes, the ethical imperative behind such research methods, and the need to select appropriate research tools to reduce bias and maximize impact.
The Proceedings of the ACSA International Conference: Change, Architecture, Education, Practices; Costa, X, and Thorne, M, Conference Coordinators, Barcelona, Spain, June 21, 2012., 2012
Awareness of international crises and the opening of global marketplaces have captured the attent... more Awareness of international crises and the opening of global marketplaces have captured the attention of contemporary practitioners. Large firms invest increasing amounts of resources and effort to managing global opportunities, but given the state of the economy, some are finding that such labors are not paying off. Furthermore, the common model of architectural practice is predicated upon a very limited client base. Architects create new opportunities by diversifying their definition of who can be a client, and how a different skill set can both increase their professional prosperity and bring design services to overlooked local stakeholders.
Similarly, international crises - be they tsunamis, earthquakes, or floods – capture the attention of socially-aware design professionals. These instances often bring out the best in design practitioners, but just as frequently result in design interventions which, while well-intended, range from misguided to patronizing. Designers who practice humanitarian architecture on a global scale must negotiate obstacles such as language barriers, inadequate understanding of local practices, and an overly-heroic sense of hubris. Meanwhile, many of our local communities – some in our own backyards – suffer from less dramatic yet equally dire conditions of decay, poverty, and neglect.
Are traditional models of architectural practice still viable in cities mired in physical, psychological, and economic crisis? What are the reasonable limits of architectural involvement in such contexts? Are students being educated in a manner that allows them to maximize the public benefits of their talents? To accept these challenges is to accept the need for a new model that allows for the possibility of new interpretations of professional practice, outcomes and deliverables.
This paper outlines the philosophical underpinnings and activities of practitioners who are breaking from previously-accepted models of global, professional, and humanitarian practices. Examples include ‘storefront architects’, who aim to bring professional design services to clients who previously believed this a luxury reserved for only wealthy individuals and corporations, and Seattle architect John Morefield, who changed his practice by offering “architecture for five cents”. Discussion includes the work of Public Architecture, which was launched when John Peterson decided to ‘create his own design competition’ by presenting an unsolicited proposal to improve public green space in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. The transition of Atlanta-based Mad Housers from ‘guerilla activists’ to ‘legitimate’ service providers underscores the opportunities for architects to fulfill their fiduciary responsibility within a matrix of social and professional sanction.
The paper concludes with an introduction to a graduate level design studio offered at a Midwestern university. By exploring alternative practice principles such as clientless and unsolicited architectural interventions the course requirements shift student skill development from ‘problem solving’ to ‘problem seeking’, attempting to engage students in a dialogue regarding the social, political, and cultural obligations of the design professional. Special focus is placed upon cultivating student abilities in critically reading their environment from both the physical and social perspective, as well as upon expanding their definitions of ‘architectural’ interventions, seeking to impact sustainable change at the individual and neighborhood scale.
In “A Whole New Mind”, Daniel Pink posits that future opportunities will be presented to those wh... more In “A Whole New Mind”, Daniel Pink posits that future opportunities will be presented to those who engage principles that are ‘high concept’ and ‘high touch’. Future professionals will need to move outside of traditional definitions of their practices, and explore avenues which put them in direct contact with potential clients. According to Pink, such students will need “the ability to empathize with others, to understand the subtleties of human interaction ….. and to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning”. Implicit in this is the need to introduce paradigms of activism and advocacy into design education.
In one sense, the decision to work for a specific client implies de facto advocacy of their business practices, institutional mission, or personal lifestyle. In a field where there is a thin line between the built work and the architect’s identity, this fact can occasionally lead to serious conflicts and moral questioning. In addition, there are practitioners who seek opportunities to bring their talents to bear in partnership with underserved constituencies, some of whom have not even self-identified. Within this context, architects seek to expand the ethical role of architects by defining a new ‘post-industrial fiduciary responsibility’ that views complacency and inaction as negligence.
To prepare students, it is not enough to provide them with the requisite skills traditionally associated with their chosen field, but to include a framework of advocacy within the classroom pedagogy. In many problem-based learning contexts, students are provided a situation to be addressed, in a controlled classroom environment. This paper outlines the philosophical underpinnings and activities of a design architectural studio as a model of advocacy-based learning pedagogy. By exploring the alternative practice principle of designer-initiated inquiry the course shifts student skill development from ‘problem solving’ to ‘problem seeking’.
Drafts by Edward Orlowski
Reading The Architecture Of The Underprivileged Classes, edited by Nnamdi Elleh, phD, 2014
‘The Blues’, a form of folk music originated in the American south at the turn of the 19th and 20... more ‘The Blues’, a form of folk music originated in the American south at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. A blend of field hollers and work songs -common to African slaves - and spirituals, the Blues as a form of expression was central to the African-American experience in the early 20th century. Hand-in-hand with this musical form were the social and economic conditions faced by rural African-Americans as slavery was abolished, and replaced with the similarly oppressive systems of sharecropping and Jim Crow. The sharecropping system, under the guise of a pseudo-cooperative business, led to a culture of scarcity which manifested itself in the Blues, and was represented in an architectural typology common to this setting: the shotgun house. This typology, and the cultural thread which ties it inextricably to Blues music and other aspects of rural African-American society in the early 20th century provides an insight into issues of place, happening, and experience.
The ‘Shotgun House’, so-called because in theory a shotgun blast through the front door would pass uninterrupted through the back door, was the most common type of low-income housing in the rural south into the mid-20th century. This paper follows the origins of the type through New Orleans to Haiti to Western Africa, and contrasts are drawn between the meanings of the shotgun as a ‘freeman’s’ house in New Orleans, and the very different connotations behind the plantation-provided housing occupied by tenant farmers. Accounts of former occupants such as Delta artist and musician Pat Thomas inform discussions of the shotgun including analysis of public versus private space, use of communal space as part of transplanted African culture, and the connection between the Delta shotgun house and its symbolic roles in the larger cultural expression of Delta Blues music. Lastly, contemporary readings of the shotgun house - through new housing interpretations, the paintings of John Biggers, the shotgun as ‘blues tourist’ housing, and artistic installation work - are reviewed, to provide a contemporary context in which to assess the lasting cultural impact of this formal typology, and the layers of meaning imprinted upon it.
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Papers by Edward Orlowski
In traditional studio contexts, students are frequently presented with projects lacking real ‘clients’, and only an abstract interpretation of potential users. This creates a level of disconnect to the project. Given that direct user input is essential to PID work, student research must move beyond typical ‘abstract’ analysis of site, program, context, etc. By analyzing internal case studies exploring the comparative impact of various tools utilized by students to gather information and facilitate dialogue with community partners, this paper explores the biases inherent in some of these methods. Reflection from both the instructor and some of the approximately 110 students who have participated in this course over a ten-year period reveals moments of both success and failure. This paper underscores the importance of inclusive processes, the ethical imperative behind such research methods, and the need to select appropriate research tools to reduce bias and maximize impact.
Similarly, international crises - be they tsunamis, earthquakes, or floods – capture the attention of socially-aware design professionals. These instances often bring out the best in design practitioners, but just as frequently result in design interventions which, while well-intended, range from misguided to patronizing. Designers who practice humanitarian architecture on a global scale must negotiate obstacles such as language barriers, inadequate understanding of local practices, and an overly-heroic sense of hubris. Meanwhile, many of our local communities – some in our own backyards – suffer from less dramatic yet equally dire conditions of decay, poverty, and neglect.
Are traditional models of architectural practice still viable in cities mired in physical, psychological, and economic crisis? What are the reasonable limits of architectural involvement in such contexts? Are students being educated in a manner that allows them to maximize the public benefits of their talents? To accept these challenges is to accept the need for a new model that allows for the possibility of new interpretations of professional practice, outcomes and deliverables.
This paper outlines the philosophical underpinnings and activities of practitioners who are breaking from previously-accepted models of global, professional, and humanitarian practices. Examples include ‘storefront architects’, who aim to bring professional design services to clients who previously believed this a luxury reserved for only wealthy individuals and corporations, and Seattle architect John Morefield, who changed his practice by offering “architecture for five cents”. Discussion includes the work of Public Architecture, which was launched when John Peterson decided to ‘create his own design competition’ by presenting an unsolicited proposal to improve public green space in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. The transition of Atlanta-based Mad Housers from ‘guerilla activists’ to ‘legitimate’ service providers underscores the opportunities for architects to fulfill their fiduciary responsibility within a matrix of social and professional sanction.
The paper concludes with an introduction to a graduate level design studio offered at a Midwestern university. By exploring alternative practice principles such as clientless and unsolicited architectural interventions the course requirements shift student skill development from ‘problem solving’ to ‘problem seeking’, attempting to engage students in a dialogue regarding the social, political, and cultural obligations of the design professional. Special focus is placed upon cultivating student abilities in critically reading their environment from both the physical and social perspective, as well as upon expanding their definitions of ‘architectural’ interventions, seeking to impact sustainable change at the individual and neighborhood scale.
In one sense, the decision to work for a specific client implies de facto advocacy of their business practices, institutional mission, or personal lifestyle. In a field where there is a thin line between the built work and the architect’s identity, this fact can occasionally lead to serious conflicts and moral questioning. In addition, there are practitioners who seek opportunities to bring their talents to bear in partnership with underserved constituencies, some of whom have not even self-identified. Within this context, architects seek to expand the ethical role of architects by defining a new ‘post-industrial fiduciary responsibility’ that views complacency and inaction as negligence.
To prepare students, it is not enough to provide them with the requisite skills traditionally associated with their chosen field, but to include a framework of advocacy within the classroom pedagogy. In many problem-based learning contexts, students are provided a situation to be addressed, in a controlled classroom environment. This paper outlines the philosophical underpinnings and activities of a design architectural studio as a model of advocacy-based learning pedagogy. By exploring the alternative practice principle of designer-initiated inquiry the course shifts student skill development from ‘problem solving’ to ‘problem seeking’.
Drafts by Edward Orlowski
The ‘Shotgun House’, so-called because in theory a shotgun blast through the front door would pass uninterrupted through the back door, was the most common type of low-income housing in the rural south into the mid-20th century. This paper follows the origins of the type through New Orleans to Haiti to Western Africa, and contrasts are drawn between the meanings of the shotgun as a ‘freeman’s’ house in New Orleans, and the very different connotations behind the plantation-provided housing occupied by tenant farmers. Accounts of former occupants such as Delta artist and musician Pat Thomas inform discussions of the shotgun including analysis of public versus private space, use of communal space as part of transplanted African culture, and the connection between the Delta shotgun house and its symbolic roles in the larger cultural expression of Delta Blues music. Lastly, contemporary readings of the shotgun house - through new housing interpretations, the paintings of John Biggers, the shotgun as ‘blues tourist’ housing, and artistic installation work - are reviewed, to provide a contemporary context in which to assess the lasting cultural impact of this formal typology, and the layers of meaning imprinted upon it.
In traditional studio contexts, students are frequently presented with projects lacking real ‘clients’, and only an abstract interpretation of potential users. This creates a level of disconnect to the project. Given that direct user input is essential to PID work, student research must move beyond typical ‘abstract’ analysis of site, program, context, etc. By analyzing internal case studies exploring the comparative impact of various tools utilized by students to gather information and facilitate dialogue with community partners, this paper explores the biases inherent in some of these methods. Reflection from both the instructor and some of the approximately 110 students who have participated in this course over a ten-year period reveals moments of both success and failure. This paper underscores the importance of inclusive processes, the ethical imperative behind such research methods, and the need to select appropriate research tools to reduce bias and maximize impact.
Similarly, international crises - be they tsunamis, earthquakes, or floods – capture the attention of socially-aware design professionals. These instances often bring out the best in design practitioners, but just as frequently result in design interventions which, while well-intended, range from misguided to patronizing. Designers who practice humanitarian architecture on a global scale must negotiate obstacles such as language barriers, inadequate understanding of local practices, and an overly-heroic sense of hubris. Meanwhile, many of our local communities – some in our own backyards – suffer from less dramatic yet equally dire conditions of decay, poverty, and neglect.
Are traditional models of architectural practice still viable in cities mired in physical, psychological, and economic crisis? What are the reasonable limits of architectural involvement in such contexts? Are students being educated in a manner that allows them to maximize the public benefits of their talents? To accept these challenges is to accept the need for a new model that allows for the possibility of new interpretations of professional practice, outcomes and deliverables.
This paper outlines the philosophical underpinnings and activities of practitioners who are breaking from previously-accepted models of global, professional, and humanitarian practices. Examples include ‘storefront architects’, who aim to bring professional design services to clients who previously believed this a luxury reserved for only wealthy individuals and corporations, and Seattle architect John Morefield, who changed his practice by offering “architecture for five cents”. Discussion includes the work of Public Architecture, which was launched when John Peterson decided to ‘create his own design competition’ by presenting an unsolicited proposal to improve public green space in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. The transition of Atlanta-based Mad Housers from ‘guerilla activists’ to ‘legitimate’ service providers underscores the opportunities for architects to fulfill their fiduciary responsibility within a matrix of social and professional sanction.
The paper concludes with an introduction to a graduate level design studio offered at a Midwestern university. By exploring alternative practice principles such as clientless and unsolicited architectural interventions the course requirements shift student skill development from ‘problem solving’ to ‘problem seeking’, attempting to engage students in a dialogue regarding the social, political, and cultural obligations of the design professional. Special focus is placed upon cultivating student abilities in critically reading their environment from both the physical and social perspective, as well as upon expanding their definitions of ‘architectural’ interventions, seeking to impact sustainable change at the individual and neighborhood scale.
In one sense, the decision to work for a specific client implies de facto advocacy of their business practices, institutional mission, or personal lifestyle. In a field where there is a thin line between the built work and the architect’s identity, this fact can occasionally lead to serious conflicts and moral questioning. In addition, there are practitioners who seek opportunities to bring their talents to bear in partnership with underserved constituencies, some of whom have not even self-identified. Within this context, architects seek to expand the ethical role of architects by defining a new ‘post-industrial fiduciary responsibility’ that views complacency and inaction as negligence.
To prepare students, it is not enough to provide them with the requisite skills traditionally associated with their chosen field, but to include a framework of advocacy within the classroom pedagogy. In many problem-based learning contexts, students are provided a situation to be addressed, in a controlled classroom environment. This paper outlines the philosophical underpinnings and activities of a design architectural studio as a model of advocacy-based learning pedagogy. By exploring the alternative practice principle of designer-initiated inquiry the course shifts student skill development from ‘problem solving’ to ‘problem seeking’.
The ‘Shotgun House’, so-called because in theory a shotgun blast through the front door would pass uninterrupted through the back door, was the most common type of low-income housing in the rural south into the mid-20th century. This paper follows the origins of the type through New Orleans to Haiti to Western Africa, and contrasts are drawn between the meanings of the shotgun as a ‘freeman’s’ house in New Orleans, and the very different connotations behind the plantation-provided housing occupied by tenant farmers. Accounts of former occupants such as Delta artist and musician Pat Thomas inform discussions of the shotgun including analysis of public versus private space, use of communal space as part of transplanted African culture, and the connection between the Delta shotgun house and its symbolic roles in the larger cultural expression of Delta Blues music. Lastly, contemporary readings of the shotgun house - through new housing interpretations, the paintings of John Biggers, the shotgun as ‘blues tourist’ housing, and artistic installation work - are reviewed, to provide a contemporary context in which to assess the lasting cultural impact of this formal typology, and the layers of meaning imprinted upon it.