Pivoting suddenly to online learning in March 2020, we extended Willams et al’s. (2005) theory of the systemic dimension through opening up external relations to new global alliances to share resources and co-author ideas on inclusion, equity and access within our curriculums. We formulated nine inclusive practices listed in Table 2.
Systemic Inclusive Context: Nine Inclusive Practices
As it was easier to invite and incorporate a more diverse list of global participants within our final architectural presentations and online discussions, we were able to celebrate and bring a diversity of ideas and cultural knowledges (ACSA: Educating in a Rapidly Changing Time, 2020).
The Start of a Conversation About ‘Celebrating Diversity in the Studio as an Asset’. Join the conversation in the Comments section at the bottom of the Post.
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”.
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2 Comments
In regards to the suggestion to “address changing context and existing professional barriers”:
HD: “it does seem in retrospect as though education has changed less than professional practice. Bergström: 18 on reflection of Cuff’s book (2000 – reference Bergstrom) prediction that the gap between practice and education will widen
“Perhaps one can blame the numerous, top down university initiatives or committee interferences that based their thinking on abstract theories of learning and standard pedagogical formulas of university education ignoring the reality of architectural professional practice as well as the reality of the built environment and of the desires and aspirations of its users for a good sustainable equitable environment. The presence in several such high level academic committees of prominent architectural practitioners has not facilitated change because most of these illustrious members of the profession were looking into the short term practical conveniences of their firms rather than long term goals of sustainable natural and social quality.In most cases they did not encourage any fundamental rethinking of the structure and operations of schools of architecture in over- coming the gap between the obsolescing institutions and the dynamic real world.” (Tzonis 2014: 477)
[MG] As our education is based on white privilege and disadvantages people of color, once we interrogate this history we can restructure how we think and can make systemic change.
THE RADICALLY INCLUSIVE STUDIO 
In regards to the suggestion to “address changing context and existing professional barriers”:
HD: “it does seem in retrospect as though education has changed less than professional practice. Bergström: 18 on reflection of Cuff’s book (2000 – reference Bergstrom) prediction that the gap between practice and education will widen
“Perhaps one can blame the numerous, top down university initiatives or committee interferences that based their thinking on abstract theories of learning and standard pedagogical formulas of university education ignoring the reality of architectural professional practice as well as the reality of the built environment and of the desires and aspirations of its users for a good sustainable equitable environment. The presence in several such high level academic committees of prominent architectural practitioners has not facilitated change because most of these illustrious members of the profession were looking into the short term practical conveniences of their firms rather than long term goals of sustainable natural and social quality.In most cases they did not encourage any fundamental rethinking of the structure and operations of schools of architecture in over- coming the gap between the obsolescing institutions and the dynamic real world.” (Tzonis 2014: 477)
[MG] As our education is based on white privilege and disadvantages people of color, once we interrogate this history we can restructure how we think and can make systemic change.