Design and Social Justice

Design is very relevant from a psychological perspective. We walk through different designed spaces everyday and learn about what kinds of behaviors are expected on those spaces. We learn about what kinds of people are in those spaces, we learn about historic legacy, we learn about current investment. We learn about our place in the world based on the places where we spend time. This learning perhaps does not occur explicitly, it just happens as we decode social norms that shape and are shaped by the physical environment.

Dignifying Design

This article in the NY Times talks about design and justice. It is usually the case that those that are wealthy or powerful are the ones surrounded by useful and beautiful design. It is much more relevant to provide well designed spaces for those that do not have access to it. Because of the information that we learn from our surroundings, we could influence the knowledge that people have about themselves by changing the environments in which they spend time.

I believe in providing better and more adequate design, that is culturally aware, and that is produced in collaboration with the space users. Schools designed under these premises can become successful learning communities.

The answer is: It could

Can a New Building Save a Failing School?

This story was aired yesterday on "All Things Considered". It asks whether a school can be saved by a new building. The question implies that a school is much more than brick and mortar. And it is. But the places where we spend time matter. The building is not only a "shell" where the schooling takes place. There is a constant and dynamic interaction that happens between users and the physical environment. What the building can "afford" its users makes a difference in what the users can produce. Building users benefit from comfortable spaces where light and temperature can be controlled, where technology is state of the art, and where pride can be built.
The physical environment of the building indicates how much investment is being done in the community, in the students, in the teachers, and in the building administrators.
In my own research I have seen that a new school building, like any other single element of a school, is not magic and it won't turn a school around overnight. It might quickly improve attendance, it will definitively improve morale. But it will take time to build the trust that was lost as the old school building crumbled down...
The school buildings of the XXI century should empower and support teachers and students in their education. They should be flexible, technology ready and pleasant.

Architecture for Learning

Examples of best practices in building learning environments. Wow.


http://youtu.be/8LX4I0DkrtQ

Community Psychology in the NY Times

One of the first studies I read when I came to the US to study Community Psych. An article in the NY Times describes it.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/the-power-of-nursing/

Going to the Principal's Office...

It will be interesting to see the pictures that will be displayed at this WNYC News Blog...

http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/wnyc-news-blog/2012/apr/09/principals-office-look-school-leaders-unique-work-spaces/?token=2bb8afc19735da16d390ce0650461f07&content_type_id=26&object_id=198148

"The builders of Borobudur understood perfectly how stone can shape thought"

I just heard this on the radio. I am not able to listen to this show all the time, but I catch it whenever I can. I feel it captures the essence of design, architecture, culture and psychology when they intersect in an object or a building.


The experience of climbing the terraces of Borobudur is a powerful one. As you emerge from the enclosed corridors of the lower terraces, into the clear open spaces above, surrounded only by a circle of volcanoes, you are very conscious of having entered a different world. Even the most hardened tourist has the sense that this is not a site visit, but a pilgrim's progress. The builders of Borobudur understood perfectly how stone can shape thought.


From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/about/transcripts/episode59/


Stone, all physical matter, can shape thought. It can constrain it, can exalt it. Perhaps it cannot change thought, but it can afford a journey of change or stagnation. 

Place yourself in an environment where you can grow your ideas...

I  just came across this video. The author, Steven Johnson, highlights the role of the environment (mainly the social environment and the Internet) in generating ideas and innovation. Schools and work places should be the kind of environment where  the exchange of "hunches", as he describes it, happens.

http://youtu.be/NugRZGDbPFU

Strategic Architecture

Perhaps the use of sociopetal arrangements or simply designing with clear strategic goals helps to create environments of collaboration.

An article in today's NY Times talk about how Bell Labs used social affordances in their quest for innovation.
From the article:

Elliott Erwitt/Magnum Photos

"ONE element of his approach (Mervin Kelly's) was architectural. He personally helped design a building in Murray Hill, N.J., opened in 1941, where everyone would interact with one another. Some of the hallways in the building were designed to be so long that to look down their length was to see the end disappear at a vanishing point. Traveling the hall’s length without encountering a number of acquaintances, problems, diversions and ideas was almost impossible. A physicist on his way to lunch in the cafeteria was like a magnet rolling past iron filings."


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/opinion/sunday/innovation-and-the-bell-labs-miracle.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=true%20innovation&st=cse

Building Schools in New Jersey...

Building schools in NJ can never be easy or clear or without controversy... Christie, I don't trust that you will do a better job fixing buildings than the job you have done "fixing" education in the state... (fixing in his case is similar to "fixing" stray animals...)


http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/12/0216/0209/

Aha!

Great! let's pay more attention to this...(I wish I had more time to comment...!)

January 22, 2012

America's Health Threat: Poor Urban Design

David Zentz for The Chronicle

Richard Jackson waits for a bus outside Los Angeles International Airport. The UCLA scientist is a leading voice in the call for better urban design for the sake of public health.

By Scott Carlson

http://chronicle.com/article/A-Scientist-Pushes-Urban/130404/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

The knowledge in objects

Many authors have described the role of asomatic knowledge, two that come to mind are Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Tim Ingold. On the Leonard Lopate show on WNYC the director of the British Museum has been talking about the BBC's "History of the World" exhibition, which depicts the history of our world through 100 objects. I have not had a chance to listen to any of the shows yet (they are doing one object per day, so perhaps I will catch one). It seems to me that in our everyday life we do not look at the objects we use as "full of knowledge". From the intention in their design, to the way objects are produced; we forget that we are interacting with historic creations and the knowledge that they embody. We forget that we change the objects and the objects change us.

In looking at whole environments do we stop to see the objects they contain?

Link to the "History of the World" exhibit at the British Museum

As the Iron Lady puts it...

http://youtu.be/hFp2SD-AUdw

I was surprised to hear the beginning of this clip on the radio. It is of Merryl Streep performing as Margaret Thatcher, she says to the British Parliament:

"Teachers cannot teach when there is no heating, no lighting in their classrooms..."

There is such an obvious connection between the quality of the school environment and the quality of academic outcomes that it almost sounds as a cliché. Even though I have not seen this film, and therefore don't know the context of the clip, Thatcher's proclamation sounds like the all-too-known issue in education. There is little understanding of the processes that occur in the human-environment interaction, What is it about a poor environment that impedes education's goals? There are the clear functional factors: We cannot see without proper lighting. We cannot learn if we are sitting at an uncomfortable temperature. But beyond that, what does it mean to attend a school in disrepair? What are the implications for education as "the great equalizer"?
This is the subject of my dissertation research and of much of my future research.
My concern is the reproduction of social structure, where poor school children attend poor school environments and attain poor educational outcomes.

As Margaret/Merryl adds:

"Who's fault is that?"

Nice find thanks to Radiolab

I heard about this show when listening to Radiolab (www.radiolab.org). It was very interesting to hear about the "invisibility" of design.
The issue of design, just as the issue of environment as an active aspect of human activity has a way of disappearing in the background.


http://99percentinvisible.org/