Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) predominantly have strong structural frameworks that are often ruled by formal and well-established administrative and bureaucratic processes that provide operational clarity, but not necessarily accessibility and flexibility.
The pivot showed that the formal and strong hierarchical structural dimension might be good for a sense of security and ‘holding’ the institution together, but that “fast decisions reveal flaws in our organizational structures and decision-making processes that could result in inequity and disparity between groups” (ACSA: Pivot to Online Learning, 2020). In unfamiliar situations, it is necessary to change quickly, with the flexibility and adaptability of any structural system.
For a radically inclusive studio it would be necessary to:
Structural Inclusive Context: Six Inclusive PracticesThe Start of a Conversation About ‘Accommodating Adaptable Infrastructure Provision’ and ‘Creating Flexibility for Individual/Unique Conditions’. Join the conversation at the bottom of the Post in the Comments section.
Based in Brooklyn, New York, I work at the intersection of interior design, social activism and emerging digital technologies. As a design activist and technologist, I work to decolonise the design curricula and facilitate the democratization of technologies, heightened since the global pandemic and pivot online. Designing feminist exhibitions and round table discussions, and collaboratively building an equitable database of resources for the design studio that opens relationships between the Global South and North. Collaboration is central in my practice. I am co-authoring a chapter titled “The Radically Inclusive Studio: an open access conversation on radically inclusive practices in the architectural design studio” with newfound colleagues in South Africa and Australia for The Routledge Companion to Architectural Pedagogies of the Global South, edited by Dean Harriet Harriss, Ashraf Salama, and Ane Gonzalez Lara. Research presented in December 2020 at HELTASA in South Africa: “Inclusive Spatial Practices for Professional Education” and in May 2020 for Teaching Architecture Online: Methods and Outcomes: “Creating the Virtual Commons”.
View all posts by mgorman
