Whenever someone publishes a text voicing millennials’ dissatisfactions with the state of the profession, it often provokes an onslaught of criticism from seasoned architects qualifying the writer as spoiled, narcissistic and whiny. The general consensus in the comment section, rightfully implying the necessity of hard work and practical experience, usually omits the fact that there are numerous other ways to practice architecture besides taking the conventional route. The refusal to slave away working for someone else is a legitimate choice, although it comes with higher risks and requires a great deal of self-motivation.
There is no need to suck up to the Starchitect mentor, climb the corporate ladder, or take out a life-crippling student loan for the mere chance of making it into the five percent of those groomed for stardom. If there is one thing young graduates should take from the successes of enterprises like 2015’s Turner Prize-winner — British design collective Assemble — it is that the definition of architecture is fluid, pregnant with interdisciplinary possibilities that call for an entrepreneurial mindset.
The Cineroleum by Assemble
The modern-day socially engaged architect is not a scruffy Woody Allen-esque character wandering into cafeterias with scrolls of drawings under his arms, screaming about injustice. Instead, what we’re witnessing is the emergence of a generation of professionals aware of the impact the sharing economy and the tech industry are having on a profession stubbornly clinging to the idea of catering to a demographic minority that can afford good design.
London-based collective Assemble is a great example of working outside the prescribed norm. They are the first non-artists and the youngest people to win the famous Turner Prize with their Granby Four Streets project, an urban regeneration initiative to preserve and revive a cluster of Victorian-era terraced houses in Toxteth, Liverpool.
After years of fighting demolition plans, local residents have teamed up with Assemble to introduce vibrant public spaces, refurbish the houses, and create real job opportunities in the neighborhood. Thanks to public involvement, funding from social investor Steinbeck Studio, and local training, the collective has managed to take control of 10 empty properties that are currently being refurbished. The second phase of the project will include a winter garden nestled within the brick walls of a gutted house.
The Cineroleum by Assemble
Assemble’s first project, The Cineroleum, transformed a gas station on Clerkenwell Road in London into a temporary cinema wrapped in a hand-sewn curtain of roofing membrane. The project had no client and was built by over a hundred volunteers. Continuing their guerrilla tactics, the collective transformed a disused motorway undercroft into an arts venue and public space, built and curated in collaboration with local residents and organizations as well as the Create Festival and the Barbican Centre. Over 200 volunteers built the pitch-roofed structure using wooden bricks made of railway sleepers.
Folly for a Flyover by Assemble
Instead of gunning for ivory-tower clients promising unlimited budgets and total creative control, many young architects are now recognizing opportunities in the social and economic schism caused by the global recession and have decided to take the crisis by its horns. They are tapping into a huge pool of underserved users, recognizing the importance of communities, peer-to-peer economic activities, user feedback, data, and statistics. Social engagement enables them to practice their crafts with more autonomy and make palpable changes to the built environment without having to go through the wringer of working as corporate “CAD monkeys.”
Assemble’s diverse portfolio, comprising art installations, community housing strategies, temporary architecture, and public spaces, is explanation enough for the members’ hesitance to define their own practice. The confusion among art and architecture critics about how to label Assemble’s work only proves that it is time we retired the old ‘is architecture art’ question. It will be some time before the wider architectural community manages to put its finger on what this new architecture really is. Assemble’s 18-strong collective of activists-cum-architects-cum-artists-cum-coffee-drinkers reminds us that the disciplinary rigidity of architecture exists solely in the minds of architects.
Granby Workshop
Taking a cue from the tech industry, enterprises like Assemble are not waiting for clients. Instead, they are reaching out directly to communities, involving experts from different disciplines, and partnering with alternative institutions in order to get things done. The revamped interest in social architecture comes from a place far-removed from the idea of institutionalized town-planning; it embraces a ground-up approach and heterogeneity, rediscovers the vernacular, and reminds us that the debate over the relationship between architecture and politics is as redundant as it is tired.
Granby Workshop
While these new socially engaged studios are diverse enterprises that combine for-profit and no-profit work and receive funding from different sources, the point of commonality is their approaches to navigating the bureaucratic maze that too often discourages young builders to strike out on their own. This is where the idea of lean urbanism, pioneered by architect Andrés Duany, promises to help.
In a piece for The Atlantic’s CityLab, writer Anthony Flint presents the concept of lean urbanism as a movement that aims to provide tools that help young entrepreneurs and small builders realize their projects in economical, low-tech ways by simplifying the regulatory apparatus standing in the way of community-building. Duany describes it as a “software patch or a workaround,” which enables more organic urban development by legally bypassing all sorts of rules. Lean urbanism seems to be the right step toward more entrepreneurial practices in town-planning — harnessing an open-access, open-source, and open-ended attitude to creating resilient neighborhoods.
The sharing economy is experiencing a crisis. Privately owned platforms are being accused of functioning as monopolies that revert to the business-as-usual approach instead of flattening out hierarchical structures. Assemble’s example shows that, via localization and cooperation among people belonging to same communities, architects could become this system’s redeemers and the facilitators of its purest form.
Photos via Assemble