ARC465H1 F
Instructor: Aziza Chaouni
Meeting Section: L0101
Fall 2024

Today, socially engaged architectural practices represent an emerging and diverse architectural typology that aims to redefine architecture beyond a market-driven profession, integrating activism, philanthropy, and social enterprise. These practices embrace progressive values such as social equity, poverty reduction, and environmental protection.

Traditionally, architects have acted as 'service providers' for clients, executing projects according to client goals. While clients remain crucial for the profession's sustainability, an increasing number of architectural practices and professionals are moving away from the conventional service-provider model. Instead, they are forming partnerships with non-profit organizations, educational institutions, and international aid agencies, actively advocating for and shaping socially engaged projects from inception. This approach cultivates practice models more resilient to economic fluctuations, such as economic crises, surplus architects, client scarcity, and intense competition within the field. Moreover, by engaging with underrepresented clients, these models bridge the gap between the affluent minority who can afford architectural services and the majority in need of but lacking access to such services.

This seminar aims to introduce students to socially engaged practices through lectures, discussions, and a semester-long research project with selected NGOs in the Global South. Student teams will collaborate with these NGOs and project users, identifying design strategies, proposing collaborative methods, exploring funding opportunities, and presenting a final design aligned with user needs.