undesigning
I did, by the way, finish reading the paper with the title that I mentioned here. If I understand it, it’s a bit of an overview of contemporary thought on how to deal with complex “soft systems” — those involving the human, social realms — and how the hell we might make ourselves sustainable.
It doesn’t really suggest like, action items — perhaps partly because it posits that there are inherent limitations on narrow-objective goal-setting when applied to soft systems — but it’s worth a read if such things tickle you. The accumulation of wealth as a primary societal value takes quite an intellectual beating, and I always enjoy that.
It talks about the idea of “order that is generated, rather than designed,” which I think is very compelling. It’s a freer, less imperial stance to take, one which blends with the flow of systems rather than imposes itself upon them, and one which Hartley (and those she cites) claims must be taken to effect change in a system with the scope of global society.
My thesis advisor has a lecture in his first-year intro to architecture class in which he unwinds the etymology of “architect” into the phrase “master of allowing to become.” I think that’s an awesome, evocative way to put it. It makes me think of architecture as co-creation between human and nature (not that the two are separate). It’s what architecture should be, not what usually is.
But perhaps that fact isn’t only the fault of the architect; more likely it’s a systemic problem. Given the constraints of the current framework within which architects work — developers, owners, contractors, steel and concrete — maybe many are still “masters of allowing to become,” but the results can only possibly look like the system in which it was born. Zeitgeist and all that.