SOCIAL FORUM OF ARCHITECTURE 2010
21-23 Oct. 2010 - Ankara TURKEY
HUMAN RIGHTS BASED DESIGN STUDIO
HUMAN RIGHTS BASED DESIGN STUDIO
Sen. Lect. Dr. Hossein Sadri
Assist. Prof. Dr. Senem Zeybekoğlu Sadri
Architectural practice and its harms to human being and environment has become a broadly discussed issue during recent years. Architectural education constitutes the foundation of this practice and is meant to create a deep understanding of and sensitivity for human life and environment. However, most of the time, this understanding and sensitivity remain at the level of following the latest trends and cannot go beyond a hunt for designing spectacular, hi-tech buildings. Consequently, we think that architectural education should be reconsidered and design studios play an important role during this process.
With this motivation, we have designed a workshop that aims at questioning the formal design studio system in architectural education and bringing up the ethical responsibilities of profession of architecture, through its theoretical background, methodology and results. Within this framework, we are going to realize “Human Rights Based Design Studio” workshop under the Social Forum of Architecture program. Sharing the background, methodology and results of the workshop will give us the chance to discuss alternatives to current approaches in architectural practice and education.
Our Critics to Contents of Design Studio
Today, our cities are changing rapidly through great urban projects that are created and executed by states, municipalities or great investors. According to Henri Lefebvre, state and capital try to homogenize spaces by creating hegemony on spaces, therefore produce absolute spaces which exclude differences and social life and which is focused on consumption. Architects and planners play a crucial role in these hegemonic processes as designers and representatives of institutional knowledge[1]. These urban projects tend to protect the benefits of state and capital, rather than serving people and society: historical sites become tourist attractions; natural resources of the city are occupied by private investments; luxurious housing areas separate themselves with high security walls from their poorer neighboring communities; formerly public areas become privatized and city space become more fragmented and polarized each day. As a result, vulnerable persons and groups become more excluded from the city life, a condition which is paralleled by the deprivation of these people from their basic human rights as well. In addition, it is not only the vulnerable groups that are affected by these urban processes. Each and every inhabitant of cities gradually loose their right to equitable usufruct of their cities and participate in its design and development.
Awareness of these human rights violations in cities and attempts to prevent them and restore their devastating results as much as possible are the points that we see lacking in architectural education so far. Therefore, we will deal with what should be done and what should not be done by architects and students of architecture during our workshop and discuss duties and responsibilities of profession and education by a human rights based approach to design studio.
Our Critics to Methodology of Design Studio
To be able to raise an awareness of human rights issues in architecture, we think that the methodology should also be reconsidered. By inspiration from Paulo Freire’s “The Pedagogy of Depressed” we tried to apply techniques that render education more egalitarian and libertarian. According to Freire, the formal education system is based on teacher-student and subject-object relations, a system in which one side dominates the other side with the power of knowledge. To eliminate this situation, it is needed to build up a system based on subject-subject relations instead of subject-object and moderator-participant relations instead of teacher-student relations[2]. By this approach, the process of learning goes beyond a one way transformation of information from teacher to student and it becomes a personal experience in which knowledge is discovered by both sides through research, discussions, group studies, simulations, role playing activities, case studies and other creative modules. This kind of education which emphasizes participation in learning breaks the domination of one idea and absolute knowledge and brings sharing and diversity of ideas and experiences. In addition to that, participation turns learning into an enjoyable process, thus keeps motivation of students in a high level. We find this kind of learning crucial in creating a real understanding and sensitivity in architectural education, and generating activism especially in human rights area.
Human Rights Based Design Studio Workshop
Under the light of these discussions, we have developed our workshop in the interdisciplinary area of architecture and human rights. Our workshop is going to be a 3 day activity, aiming at learning human rights and their spatial dimensions; creating awareness of human rights violations and their reasons; preventing these violations and developing ways and methods to restore the consequences of these violations through architecture and design. To be able to reach these aims, we are going to use modules which are based on participatory education methods. Some of these modules are adapted from human rights education books such as Compass[3], Making Rights a Reality[4] and Service Learning[5], and other modules are designed by the workshop organizers. We expect to have 20 students from different disciplines, including but not limited to architecture, urban design and planning areas.
[1] Lefebvre, H. (1991) “The Production of Space”, translated by Donald Nicholson Smith, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.
[2] Freire, P. (2006) “Ezilenlerin Pedagojisi”, çev: Dilek Hattatoğlu ve Erol Özbek, Ayrıntı Yayınları, İstanbul.
[3] Brander, P. Gomes, R. vd. (2008) “Pusula: Gençlere İnsan Hakları Eğitimi Kılavuzu”, çev: Burcu Yeşiladalı, İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, İstanbul.
[4] Amnesty International (2005) “Making Rights a Reality: Human Rights Education Workshop for Non-Governmental Organizations”, Amnesty International Publications, London.
[5] Belisle, K. ve Sullivan, E. (2007) “Service Learning: Lesson Plans and Projects”, Amnesty International USA, New York
