2017 Directory

22 WYOMING ARCHITECTURE .17 | www.aia-wyoming.org The Built Environment Education Project BY KAREN PARENT, AIA O ne summer many years ago, I sprained my ankle rock climbing and was forced into an interlude of physical inactivity and some long overdue career introspection. What was I doing in my career and did I find it filled with purpose? In part, the answer was ‘yes’; I had a job I liked working as an architect in Jackson Hole. And in part, the answer was ‘no’; did designing high-end custom houses and the occasional public building create the kind of progress in architecture and culture that I had once imagined myself contributing to? What about the majority of Americans whose primary daily public experiences take place in “junk space” – formulaic strip malls, parking lots, traffic jams, and homogeneous suburbs? What happens to a culture that is largely faced with uninspiring buildings and built environ- ments? What is the impact on a sense of com- munity and social empowerment when most Americans have little critical understanding of architecture and even less of a sense of control over their built environments? I was deter- mined to hatch a plan to have more impact as an architect and decided that my best opportu- nity was to also become an educator. Within a year, I created a non-profit, the Built Environ- ment Education Project, and soon found myself in front of a group of local high school students, anxiously trying to convince them to enroll in my nascent Architecture class. That was almost 10 years ago, and since then, I have been crafting and teaching a high school Architecture curriculum at a local community school. There are multiple tenets that thread through my four times a week, year-long course, but the foundation is that the process of learning to design spurs new, critical thinking. When students are asked to create their first small abstract project as a physical model, they immediately form a frame of reference to the built environment around them. Things that were previously unnoticed – whether it is their classroom or main street – are seen though a new lens. Students welcome the opportunity to engage in hands-on, open-ended exploration, and design not only empowers them but also supports their burgeoning critical perspective of their built environments. Through design projects, students learn about abstraction and the value it brings to prob- lem solving. The objective of the initial class projects is to design space with no pre-deter- mined use or scale. The resulting 3D models are completely open for interpretation, and students realize that they can create and read this spatial language. Subsequent projects have more specific uses and scales, and students are asked to consider form, spatial proportions and light. In a world where form often follows function in only the most rudimentary way, I encourage students to invent spaces – whether abstract, singular, complex, residential or public – that are purposeful and inspiring. Some of my students will go on to become artists, designers or architects, but most will not; however, the fundamentals of design and the access to the visual language of architecture will continue to enrich their perspectives. In addition to learning about the value of design, my curriculum would not be complete without zooming out to take a look at planning patterns in the United States and the social ideals and economic factors that support these patterns. For instance, as the suburbs grew outward from cities, who did this process favor, and what were the impacts on our cities? How did the American Dream become synonymous with the lawn and the single family house? What is the character of a built place that attracts us - ver- sus the character of a built place that we want to flee? What is the impact of the replication of a low-density pattern throughout the U.S. – not to mention abroad – in terms of land-use and resource consumption? My class discusses these questions, as well as the current conditions of the American built environment. We explore the relationship between social malaise and anonymous places, as well as the role of commercial interests in the definition of our public spaces. George Saun- ders articulated these connections very well in his piece in the July 11, 2016 New Yorker in his description of “bland, bright spaces, spaces con- structed to suit the purposes of distant profit” and goes on to say how it is easy to imagine that in the life of a kid who had moved only through such “bland, bright spaces” it would be easy to “feel powerless, to feel that the locale was lame, the abstract extraneous, to feel that To provide public architecture education that empowers individuals, promotes a just society, and supports the creation of an inspiring built environment