Amid the flurry of evangelical and skeptical views of the role(s) AI will play in architecture, questions about what constitutes proper management of these and other new developments, and what it will mean for the future role of the architect, regularly arise. This is the current – perhaps urgent – version of an ongoing, introspective inquiry to define effective, valued relationships of the architect to their contemporary society.
Le Corbusier reportedly said things were easier for Ledoux, 150 years his senior, because he didn’t have to deal with plumbing. He didn’t know the half of it. For today’s students, 115 years younger than Corb, the complexities of meaningfully contributing to the built environment have grown even more formidable. How does one ensure potency by finding points in the process to operate upon, or from, to maintain relevance?
We considered ways in which a degree of influence is made manifest in the world of the architect, starting with familiar, fundamental arenas (geometric, spatial, programmatic, material) and extending to those perhaps less common (political, historical, ecological, temporal). What are the points of contact chosen? Are they handles, pivots, origins, pinpricks?
