So I think I'd like to
introduce our pedagogy panel.
Our moderator is Abby Spinak.
She's a lecturer in
urban planning and design
here at Harvard where she
teaches environmental planning
and environmental history.
She received her PhD in urban
studies and planning at MIT
and has had fellowships
at the Charles Warren
Center for Studies and
American History at Harvard
and the Center for Energy
and Environmental Research
in the Human Sciences
at Rice University.
She's currently writing
a book about electricity
and economic citizenship in
the early 20th century United
States.
So today, we have five panelists
for the pedagogy panel.
Ang Li is an architect
and assistant professor
at the School of Architecture
at Northeastern University.
She's participated in
exhibitions at the Echo Art
Fair in Buffalo, New York,
the 2013 Lisbon Architecture
Tree in LA, and Storefront
for Art and Architecture.
Her writing and work
has been published
in Log, Clog, Thresholds,
Manifest, Arbiter,
Wired, and Blueprint.
Andrea J. Merrett
is a PhD candidate
in architecture at
Columbia University writing
her dissertation on
the history of feminism
in American architecture.
Her research has received
support through a Buell Center
Oral History Prize, a
Schlesinger Library Oral
History Grant, and the
Milka Bliznakob Prize
from the International Archive
of Women in Architecture.
She is co-curator, along with
Sarah Rafson, Lori Brown,
and Roberta Washington
of architects
traveling exhibition, Now What?
Advocacy, Activism, and Allies
in American Architecture
Since 1968.
Sai Balakrishnan is
an assistant professor
of urban planning at the GSD.
She has worked as an urban
planner in the United
States, India, and the
United Arab Emirates
and as a consultant to the
UN Habitat in Nairobi, Kenya.
Through her research
and teaching,
Balakrishnan focuses on
institutions for governing
rapid urbanization and on the
spatial politics of land use
and property.
Her work has been published
in Pacific Affairs, Economic
and Political Weekly, and
in edited book chapters.
Her book titled Shareholder
Cities Agrarian to Urban Land
Transformations Along Economic
Corridors and Liberalizing
india is forthcoming from the
University of Pennsylvania
Press.
Hanzy Better Barraza
research focuses
on the intersection of design
methods, social practices,
and equity.
In 2002, Barraza co-founded
Studio Luz Architects
based in Boston.
And in 2010, she co-founded
BR+A+CE, Building Research
plus Architecture plus Community
Exchange, a nonprofit dedicated
to creating new spaces through
community partnerships.
Barraza earned her BArch
from Cornell University
and Master's in Architecture
and Urban Design
from the Harvard GSD.
She joined RISD faculty
in 2002 and served
as a graduate program
director from 2014 to 2017.
Sonja Dumpelmann is a landscape
historian and associate
professor of
landscape architecture
at Harvard University
Graduate School of Design.
Her work focuses on
urban landscape history
in the western world and the
intersections of landscape,
science, and technology.
Her publications
include Seeing Trees,
A History of Street Trees
in New York City and Berlin,
Flights of Imagination
Aviation, Landscape, Design--
a book on the Italian landscape
architect Maria Teresa Parpa--
Parpa--
Parpaglilio
Thank you.
Shepherd, The Edited
Cultural History
of Gardens in the Age of
Empire and the co-edited Women,
Modernity, and
Landscape Architecture
in Greening The City, Urban
Landscapes in the 20th Century.
So like in the
previous panel, we'd
like to prioritize questions
from women of color first,
and if you could when
you ask a question,
wait for the mic runner to
bring you the microphone.
Because the event
is being recorded,
and we'd like to be able
to hear your question.
So now I'll turn it over
to our moderator, Abby.
Thanks.
[applause]
Hi everyone, and
welcome back from lunch.
Let me start by saying thank
you so much to the conference
organizers for putting
together this wonderful event
and also for being
very organized
about it, which
made it a pleasure
to work with you through it.
And I'll start by just saying--
just to say a quick note on
the power of collaboration
in mundane ways.
The six of us have been
engaging in conversation
in a shared Google doc for
the past week on the questions
that we're about
to talk about just
to organize our
thoughts on this panel.
And this ended up being a
really enjoyable and productive
experiment in
question generation
and collaborative
question generation.
And so I wanted to thank all
of you for being part of that
and for providing also a
methodology to think with,
because I think
that that could be
a powerful tool for other
kinds of research endeavors.
So the first question the
organizers asked us to consider
was about the relationship
between pedagogy and identity.
And so what I'm
going to do is to ask
you to start by talking about
the importance of teaching
the biographies of the people
whose designs and ideas
we highlight within our programs
as essential to understanding
our fields and to talk about how
we should do that in an engaged
and responsible way.
So as I was putting
this together,
I engaged in the cheap
trick of looking up
the word pedagogy
in the dictionary,
and the definition of it
was the method and practice
of teaching.
And I think this is important,
because it asks us to question
here not just the ideas
that we're teaching
but also how we're
socializing our students,
what kinds of examples
we are providing
and how that's a
constant struggle--
especially I know
a couple of you
brought up the deep
structural flaws of studio.
And that's not an area that I
have personal experience in,
but I've heard a
lot about that--
about studio as a
particular structural space.
And I hope that
you'll bring that up
throughout the conversation.
I was looking at what's left of
the Sam List online this week,
and one of the articles
they linked to is called
So You've Been--
So You've Sexually Harassed
or Abused Someone, What Now?
And in this article, the author
offers a list of key points
that I thought might
be useful for us.
I guess I'm revising
it to be so half
the people on your
syllabus have harassed
or abused someone or been
complicit in a culture of that,
what now?
And so I'm just as
a provocation going
to go through the seven
points that she recommends.
So number one, stop
calling your victim a liar.
Number two, don't
wait to be accused.
Number three, pause
before immediately saying,
what a better
person you are now.
Four, understand
exactly what you did.
Five, face the consequences.
Six, use your power for good.
And seven, do not
expect forgiveness.
So I'm just offering that as a
provocation for could we apply
that to the people we teach?
Could we teach in that
light where we don't--
where we position them
within their consequences?
Don't excuse their work
for speaking for itself
outside of their subjectivity,
and don't forgive them
for the way that they lived
apart from their design
and planning work.
So let me-- so why don't
I repeat the question that
we'll start the
conversation, which is this--
how can we talk about--
or what is the
importance of teaching
the biographies of the people
whose designs and ideas
we highlight within
our programs?
How is this essential to
understanding our fields,
and how should we include
this in our teaching?
Can I-- can I just
go down the line.
Sure, yeah.
OK, great.
So I guess I primarily
teach in a studio context.
So I've been thinking
about these questions
that I think you brought
up-- somebody else brought up
on this panel about
studio culture
and the culture in general in
architecture that I think still
relies on a, sort of,
mentor apprenticeship.
And so maybe to, kind
of, segue a little bit
away from your
question of saying,
how do we teach
biographies of people
while considering the
sort of roles [cut out],,
I think a related question
I've been thinking about
is, how do we maybe go away from
promoting models of ourselves
in studio culture where we tend
to promote and pick students
who are similar to us in gender
or in class or in politics
or in sort of educational
backgrounds and those
are the students that we are
promoting to positions of power
and the cycle
continues in that way?
So I guess I'm
interested in maybe--
I don't know if I have an
opinion that maybe opening up
a question about how we sort
of set up a kind of studio
syllabus that--
[audio out]
Yeah, I mean, I
think that relates
in terms of not only
who we're teaching,
but how we're teaching.
And that's the
biography question.
And that came out of
our discussion around
the [inaudible] list and how
do you teach those people who--
and I think part of it is
understanding the culture
and context and the individual.
But then there's also
like, the continuing
to reinforce that
sort of idea of genius
and that idea of like, the star
and the idea of the individual.
And I think that
perpetuates itself
in the sort of studio culture
and that mentee mentor
relationship, and start--
I mean, I'm really interested
in the work on collaboration.
And not just teaching
the individual,
but teaching who
they worked with.
When you talk about
[inaudible],, like,
he worked with his cousin.
He had other people
in the office
like Charlotte
Perriand who played
in a very important
role in the design that
came out of that office.
And given that the reality is
we are collaborative practice.
When you go out
into the profession,
most offices do not have
some star name at the top.
And you have to be
able to collaborate
with the other people
that you're working with.
You have to collaborate
with the other fields
that you're working with.
So as a historian and someone
who teaches a history, like,
how do you bring that
model into teaching?
And for me, I mean,
I think a big project
that I see in my future
is writing a new textbook.
Because if you go
through the textbooks,
the textbooks kind of
continue to perpetuate
that model of the genius.
[audio out]
Actually, can I ask you to
follow up on that just a little
bit.
If you're writing a
textbook, how would you
privilege collaboration?
I don't know yet.
[laughter]
I think collaboration--
I think collaboration is a key
point that we should touch on
throughout this conversation.
Especially, I feel
like a couple of you
brought up points in
our shared Google doc
that collaboration is
something that's in practice,
but not teaching.
And you talked about that
a little bit just now.
But it's [audio out] one of
you asked if we could actually
separate talking about
teaching from practice
specifically because of that.
And I think that's
so interesting.
And [audio out] a problem if
that's the case if we're not
teaching collaboration.
One thing that happened in the
'60s when there was that huge
rebellion in--
I mean, the student protests
on a variety of issues.
But in the architecture
schools there
was an objection to sort
of the hierarchical culture
of the studio and precisely
that kind of model.
And schools started to promote
collaborative teaching.
And so even just having
like, two people leading
the studio instead of a single
person leading the studio--
it's one step.
Thank you.
I just echoing Abbie want
to again, just extend
a huge thanks to those
student organizers.
I mean, there's incredible
effort that's gone in to--
and I know how much effort,
because one of the organizers
missed my class last afternoon.
But she had a
really good excuse.
[laughter]
But really, it's just
a phenomenal effort.
And I just wanted to again,
acknowledge that before we
start.
Yes.
[applause]
So I'll talk about planning,
which perhaps is slightly
different, just
given the histories
and theories of planning
and the kinds of debates
around planning pedagogy.
This probably goes
back a little earlier,
but even if you just
had to take the 1960s,
community control here in the
United States, the Civil Rights
movement here in
the United States.
From the 1940s to the
1960s, various anti-colonial
nationalist struggles in
the third world, what we now
call the global south.
And all of these have
thankfully, due to struggles,
it just hasn't made its way
into the planning pedagogy,
but thanks to
structures have now
become a part of the histories
and theories of planning.
And so within the
planning canon,
we have Dolores Hayden,
Susan Feinstein, [inaudible],,
June Manning Thomas.
I mean, thankfully
it's a growing list.
It's a list that's
growing longer.
But there are two
things that I'd just
like to foreground in this
conversation on pedagogy.
The first is for instance, if
you look at Chicano studies.
It's Chicanos colors.
You look at gender
women sexuality studies,
like, it's fueled by the
intellectual labor of women
and non heterosexual
individuals.
So the first question
that I'd like to raise
is why is the labor
imposed on individuals
from the very groups who were
sidelined and marginalized
in the first place?
And the one cause--
I mean, and there
are many, many causes
which have tried to bring
voices from the margins
into the mainstream.
And one is my friend and
colleague Sonya [inaudible]
course.
The [inaudible] course
that Sonya teaches,
which is a Core
class, the history
of landscape architecture.
And in conversations
that I've had with Sonja,
she talks about how it
initially started with a section
on women and landscape design.
And now it's mainstream.
Women are an integral
part of the curriculum.
But the question
is this has to be
a fairer distribution of
labor, revising our pedagogy.
And that the labor cannot be
imposed on certain specific
groups.
And related to this is
a question of power.
Like, we have to place power
centrally in this discussion,
because very often
institutions do not
recognize the kind
of scholarship that's
trying to bring voices from the
margins into the mainstream.
So there has to be a change
in institutional culture.
And all of us work
in universities.
Sometimes universities
reward individuals who
do this type of scholarship.
Very often they do not.
So we do have to think about
also the institutional culture
and power in the
types of scholarship
that we are producing.
I want to also thanks the
organizers and the students
for pulling this together.
When I walked in
I was just in awe
of seeing so many people so
many students here converging
on the topic of
what do we do now?
How do we make change
in academia in practice?
When I think of pedagogy and
when I think about biographies,
or how do we begin to
teach our students,
let's say diversity in
terms of voices and thoughts
and the ways in which one
produces architecture,
I have this acronym,
which I'm constantly
projecting on everything that
I do, which is called aim.
Aim meaning a for assess.
So I am constantly
assessing the situation.
So at RISD I look at my
population, my demographics,
and understand where is
the group coming from?
Where is the
population coming from?
The other one is
i, which includes.
How do I amend the
information to include
that group of people that are
absorbing the information?
And then lastly is m, which is
make structural change, which
is literally a reframing of
what I thought, let's say,
within what one
would consider norm.
How do we go against
that grain to bring
in diversity of thought?
So I would say that when I
think about autobiographies,
I think we should
remove ourselves
from looking at the architect
in terms of an autobiography,
and instead move forward
with three things.
One is context time--
context time and place.
So what I mean by that is
when you introduce a subject,
you have to look at the context.
You have to look
at the time period.
What was going on there
politically, economically?
And place, meaning again, what
are the social structures that
has produced a certain
kind of mind thought?
And I think that in
itself creates an identity
to the architect.
And when I say architect,
it's not just singular.
So I think that would be
like, my response to when
we think of autobiography,
don't think of in that way.
Think time, place, context,
to formulate positionality
of that work to see
the underlinings
of a particular form.
OK, I think this is on.
Yes, thank you.
So thank you to
all the organizers
at Learned at Lunch today
that there are more than 50.
So this is an incredibly
impressive venue, occasion,
and event.
And I would second Abbie
incredibly well organized.
So thank you.
Well, Sy has given me the
perfect jumping off point
very kindly, bringing to
the fore one of the classes
that I teach.
But I went to actually maybe
take that and say two things.
Because one is that
obviously, we can do better.
I can do better.
I need to do better.
And this is kind of
work in progress.
And this brings up I
think what some of you
already mentioned, that it's
an incredible amount of work,
which goes back to the
question of biographies.
We lack a lot of biographies
of the underrepresented groups.
But basic just in general, if we
look at the design professions,
there are many different
reasons for this, in part,
it's because we also
lack the archives.
And so we need more excellent
integrated scholarship.
We need more design criticism in
order to then be able to build,
whether it's a survey class
or any kind of other seminar
or lecture class that deals
with the built environment,
and make that as
diverse as possible,
or at least assume
the many perspectives
that we should be assuming.
So there's still a
lot of ground work.
And I'm especially
now of course,
talking for landscape
history there's
an incredible amount
of groundwork which
poses a lot of chances
and opportunities,
but of course also challenges.
So in terms of biographies,
I do think that they
are incredibly important.
And for some reason
there has been--
they've become out of fashion.
I don't really know why.
If we look at history,
then it's less so.
But many of the sub disciplines
of history, some meaning
the various histories
of the designed
environment or the
built environment,
biographies just seem
to be out of fashion.
And that has been a case
for about 20 years maybe,
or at least 10 years.
And you know, here
we are actually
talking about biography.
Here we are talking
about identities.
And how can you talk
about identities
if you do not know about
the specific biographies
of the figures that you're
actually talking about?
And something that came up,
what [? hansie ?] suggested
obviously the context
that people have lived in.
So the social, the political,
and cultural contexts
are incredibly
important to know about
in order to be able
to understand a design
work properly.
So these are I think
some talking points here.
And maybe to the
question of collaboration
that also came up, I
think one of the goals
as a teacher is always to
try and, at least the way
I see it, is always to try
and empower the student.
And to provide the student
with the means and methods
to learn for themselves.
And so in that process,
while at the beginning,
there might still be kind
of more of a model function
that the instructor
has to play, which
is an incredible responsibility
and a very daunting
responsibility at times also.
Basically in this process
by [inaudible] me,
at least as a
teacher, I always hope
that students kind of will learn
how to learn from themselves.
And ultimately, you will come
a colleague in that process.
And all this is to say that
kind of basically, teaching
and learning is a
collaborative process.
I just wanted to jump in.
So one of the reasons I'm
writing my dissertation,
it's because I feel like we have
to keep relearning the history.
So when you talk about
the lack of biographies,
and yes, there is so much
more work to be done on that,
but you know, here we
have the pioneering women
in architecture project up
on the wall, a lot of those
are women that Susana Torre
and the organizers of the 1977
exhibition Women in
American Architecture
wrote about 40 years ago.
And so the fact that we keep
forgetting these histories.
And yes, there's
so much more work.
And I'm working with Laurie
Brown and Karen Burns
on a global encyclopedia
of women in architecture.
And that will bring an
international perspective,
a global perspective,
but also you know,
we're trying to
make sure there's
more biographies
of women in color
who've been also very much
left out of the histories.
But we have to like,
find a way that we
don't have to come
along every generation
and relearn this stuff
and start from scratch.
Like the project you've
done with your students
is an amazing project.
And you've added a lot of names
that I wasn't familiar with.
But like, we should
be able to build,
rather than having
to keep going back
and keep having to tell our
students who Julia Morgan is,
or who like, Louise [inaudible].
So I just wanted to say that.
Well, in the interest
of doing this,
can I ask you to talk more about
the Women's School of Planning
and Architecture in the '70s?
And sort of talk a little bit
about what their intervention
and agenda was.
And why it only lasted
for less than a decade.
Yeah.
So I mean, I was
thinking about that
in terms of your next question
about feminist pedagogy.
So the Women's School of
Planning and Architecture
was an experimental
school founded in 1974.
The first session was in 1975.
And they were summer programs.
They had four of them
at different places
around the country.
And they were really
trying to dismantle
the hierarchy of the
architecture education,
create a space for women.
I mean there were so few women.
There was something like 2,000
women architects in the United
States in 1970.
So they were very isolated.
And they did co-teaching,
but they also
tried to break
down the hierarchy
between the [inaudible],,
quote unquote, "teachers
and the students."
They had like, woodworking
courses or local town planning
courses where they
met with people
who were involved
in the neighborhood
and did design
exercises on the beach
with found materials, or the
one of the workshops on women's
fantasy environments, which was
kind of consciousness raising
by design.
So that's very much
like, of that moment.
But it was this
very experimental.
They were outside of
any of the schools.
And so it allowed them
a certain freedom.
But it also allowed them
the freedom to fail,
which ultimately, the school
did as the context changed.
Yeah, so you know, as
a historical model--
and I think for me,
that raises the question
of how much can we do within the
institutions that we work in,
and do we need to
go outside sometimes
and do these more experimental
things that don't necessarily
get credit or are directly
related to the pedagogies
that we have to teach with all
the requirements [inaudible]??
That's an excellent segue
to my second question,
which is what defines
an alternative
or feminist pedagogy?
How can feminist activism
such as this event today
lead to a more general
critique of inequitable power
relations embedded within
the norms of our field?
[audio out]
But also I guess, let me add
to that if you're talking about
that it's important that
we think about spaces
to do this outside of our
everyday lives, that's again,
a problem that
reaches to size point
about the general work
of social reproduction
that falls on women
and minorities
in fields that don't accept
them as central voices.
And while yes, we should think
about the spaces that give us
freedom to do that, we should
also think about the burdens
that we're taking on ourselves
and why we have to do that.
And to keep that
highlighted as a problem.
But let's turn to more
specific conversations
about alternative pedagogy.
So I guess did it work to
go down the line again?
Sure, maybe picking up a little
bit on some of the points
that were made earlier
on collaboration
and working outside
of the studio context.
When I think about alternative
feminist pedagogies,
I think I'm less
interested in thinking
about the sort of feminist
mode of teaching as a category
or in and of itself, and more
in terms of sort of strategy
that starts to move
away from looking
at architecture as
something that's produced
by single authors, which is
something many people brought
up already as a heroic
endeavor that involves just
a kind of top down process
of design construction
building in the
world, and thinking
more about the multiple
actors both kind of human
and also non-human that are
involved in how we think
about the built environment.
So for instance, I think
I'm interested in how
feminist thinking could
influence the way that we
think about really established
ideas in design teaching.
Like, I do a lot
of forward thinking
about building after
lives through how we think
about preservation practices
in architecture, which I think
inevitably is based on very
kind of modernist Western values
systems, and how thinking about
kind of feminist practices
within that category.
Like, there are a lot of worker
women owned organizations
within the second hand material
industry, building material
industry, that
actually are influenced
by a lot of feminist rhetorics
of radical care and maintenance
and that kind of
I feel like puts
a very different
understanding on a concept
there we're all really
used to thinking
about it in a sort of different
ways within the academy.
[audio out]
Abbie's point of
it's also a question
of where teaching happens.
So even if we had to just look
within the university-- and I'm
reminded of this one thesis.
It was in the aftermath of that
the whole debate on the North
Carolina bathroom bill.
And there was a student
who was looking at--
I mean, this is really
about right to the city.
The transgenders'
right to the city.
If you don't have
a place to pee,
like, how you're going to teach?
How you're going to study?
How you're going to work?
How you're going to
travel in public transit?
So it's fundamentally a question
about the rights to this city
and right to space.
And the thesis was in
the toilet, you know,
which was very helpful
for all of us as well.
Because you really--
I mean, we all
talk about the
production of space.
But it really just ground
its spatial politics
in a very, very real way.
But you know, if
we had to expand
from that for the planning
discipline and the planning
profession, I
mean, just thinking
about the politics and the
design and planning of toilets.
It's so important
because firstly, it
foregrounds like, this old
but extremely important
feminist slogan of the
personal is political.
And secondly, it just highlights
like, the specific gender
identity around which
much of our design
and planning of the built
environment is focused.
So I remember when I was
a master's student at MIT,
this was 2006 or 2008.
And this probably changed
because Abbie was there later.
The toilets, the women's toilets
were only on alternate floors.
And I wonder if that
had to do with the fact
that women weren't
admitted to MIT til later.
And then of course, you
couldn't demolish the building.
And then you just
have the toilet
on every alternate floor.
But really thinking
about the design
and planning of something
as mundane as toilets just
foregrounds like, the political
economy of gender politics.
And the power around allocation
of resources and gender.
[audio out]
Thanks.
When I think of
feminist pedagogy,
I'm thinking of
the course I just
did at RISD in the
spring, this past spring.
I received a grant from SEI,
it's Social Equity Inclusion.
Well, the proposal was for me to
teach a seminar course on women
architects, but
specifically looking
at women of color and queer.
And so I think that academia
has to really throw away
this idea of inclusion or
working within the status
quo within the patriarchal
normal hegemony.
I literally just
put it out there.
And the reason why there
was a call from the college
was because students were
protesting that they were not
being heard, that their
culture didn't matter,
that their ethnicity, their
gender, their sexuality
was not being put forth.
And so I'm an architect.
I'm not a historian.
And a lot of my
interest has been
to really understand a history,
understand my identity.
And if I have those
questions, I'm
assuming that everyone
has those questions.
And so by just starting
from the present
and working collaboratively
with the student as a research
platform, one can acquire an
enormous amount of knowledge.
So it's hard for me to
accept this idea of--
I would say that we
are in this position
because a lot of history
has purposely been erased.
We have to look at architecture
history within colonialism.
And so I think we have to really
redo how we acquired knowledge
in education.
This platform is
great, because I
think in terms of
making change, we
can begin to create
network and collection,
and begin to not let it be a
generational constant struggle
of same issues being put forth.
So I think the answer is to
centralize the non canon,
like, and begin with
all your resources
being women, queer
women, women of color.
Let's start from there.
And then we can
have a conversation
about where does this go?
And how does it begin to then
transform the powers at play
in the construction field?
So women contractors,
I believe there's
18% of women in terms of labor
force are in construction,
but 80% of them have
experienced sexual harassment
in the workforce.
Why aren't we talking about--
[audio out]
--the design and the
construction industry?
And then potentially, that
creates a much more larger kind
of cultural movement
and shifts in our world.
So we can move forward
and stop trying
to be included in something
when it was never--
when you know, black
women couldn't even
practice in the US
for a long time.
I love this timeline.
I would like
[inaudible] timeline.
And then just to
let you guys know,
there's a website called
WomenArchitecture.com.
And that was really produced
by the student services
team, my seminar, and us trying
to just put knowledge out there
to be shared, to be shared
with the world, that's
to stop the continuation of
systematic exclusion of women,
women of color and queer.
Sorry.
[inaudible]
So feminist pedagogies--
So I'm wondering, so
as we're sitting here,
I'm seeing a lot of females.
And we're talking a lot
about women, specifically.
So first of all, I guess the
one of the points that I want
to make is that
basically, this for me,
this is only a a stand-in for
other underrepresented groups,
or even more
underrepresented groups.
And so basically, this is
a way to look at things.
It's a certain perspective
that you can assume.
But it's only one of
very many perspectives.
And secondly, the
question that I've
had in terms of my
own teaching, was
I've always had the aspiration
to let's include as much,
as many perspectives
as you can obviously.
So that's the goal.
That's the objective.
And yet-- and that's why I
said I'm seeing so many kind
of women in this audience--
we are talking among each other.
And we need to be talking
to two other genders, not
only the female gender.
And so this brings me to this
question whether or not--
I'm curious to hear
kind of from everybody
really, what you think.
Is this enough?
Is it enough to
mainstream or normalize
let's say the inclusion of--
whether it's females or
any other kind of group
that we have not looked
at in detail yet,
or do we need specific
classes to address this?
So up until now,
I've heard a lot
about these specific classes.
Whereas, kind of my own
goal has always been to I
guess basically
mainstream this, and maybe
write this textbook
of whatever kind
that actually kind of revises
histories and so forth.
But it seems that is not enough.
So that's kind of basically my
conclusion of the last couple
of years it seems that
is actually not enough,
that we need to do both maybe.
But I would like to hear
other voices on this.
Yeah.
I agree we have to do both.
Absolutely.
I don't think there is a one--
the issues are so complex.
There's not just one
approach that you can take.
We need to continue
discovering the biographies,
but we also need
to mainstream it.
Because if you look at the
effectiveness of the NCARB
requirements to bring
in non-Western examples.
And that's become something that
history teachers have to teach.
And it has to be a
certain percentage.
And there's still so much
work to be done on that,
but it's happening.
Why can't there be
an NCARB requirement
that we teach about women
and architects of color that
are under represented as well?
But at the same time, we
also need to kind of totally
smash up the system and go
do her own thing for a while.
So I think you need both.
I think, Sy, I'm going to
give you the last word.
Last word?
Ooh.
No, but I think it's
a fantastic point.
It's something that I've
been struggling with as well,
not just in terms of gender,
but also the work that I do,
which is theorizing
from the global south,
and what does that mean?
And so if I could just use an
analogy from that, and perhaps
we can then think about what
that means in terms of gender.
So I was at a planning
conference last week.
And there was a resounding
table theorizing
from the global south.
And there were six of us
women of color on that panel.
And the chair of my
department, Diane Davis,
was in the audience.
And she came up to
me at the end of it
and she said that was a
very interesting panel.
It was necessary.
And she was like, but it was
very interesting that all
of y'all are women of color.
And most of you grew up
in non-Western countries.
So again, I go back
to this question
of the label, the intellectual
and emotional label that goes
into revising the pedagogy.
And one of the things
that we were brainstorming
is perhaps have a
course where it's
counterpoints, the global north
and the global south co-taught
together.
So that may be one
way where, again,
like we don't want this
becoming like some kind
of a ghetto within the Academy.
[audio out]
That was an excellent
point to wrap up on.
I want to open the
discussion to the audience.
And let me just ask
if you have questions,
please wait for a microphone
to come to you, because this
is being recorded.
And please introduce yourself.
[audio out]
Hi, I'm Charlotte Lieb.
I am a master in landscape
architecture student,
as well as a master in design
and the history and philosophy
of design.
Building on the points
that were just made,
I wanted to ask more explicitly
about the disciplines
that have departments in design
schools, and to what extent
you see working between
disciplines as a vital part
of changing the status quo?
So of course that
integrates the global north
and the global south
is a great idea.
And I was wondering if you could
maybe brainstorm more out loud
about whether working across
departments is possible?
Or whether you need more support
or voices coming from students
to enable you as professors
to make these changes
and to develop these courses?
A lot of-- yeah, yeah.
So please, please
speak more about that,
because it can help us
as students help you.
[audio out]
Are we collecting or no?
So yes, an enthusiastic
embrace of this idea.
I think we need more resources.
We need more support.
Mostly, this means
we need more time.
And so that means like,
what are we doing?
So that's a question of labor.
It's not a question
of well at all.
It's not a question
of motivation.
I think we're super motivated.
We're extremely happy
that we're here and being
able to talk with you.
So that's the way I see
it, the 24 hours a day.
[audio out]
Hi.
My name is Sydney, and I'm a
first year planning student
here.
Thank you to the panelists
for sharing your insight.
My question is about
what do you all
see as the role of recognizing
different kinds of expertise
in the classroom as a part
of what you're talking about,
of the goals around decolonizing
pedagogy and the classroom?
[audio out]
Well, I think
maybe it's not just
about recognizing different
kinds of expertise,
but also encouraging
different models of how
we measure success.
I think the way that
we model the success
of a student in
a classroom right
now is based on a very kind
of male model of speaking up,
of having a really kind of
linear narrative in your design
project, or even
things that we consider
is really automatic
responses now,
are things that are based on a
very specific kind of person.
Maybe this isn't
exactly answering what
your question is posing--
but I think it's less about
this question of [inaudible],,
and more about just
saying well, how
do we acknowledge
different ways of kind
of practicing architecture
that we see as successful.
[audio out]
--really brings to the
fore, the kinds of biases
that we're working with.
Because I was just
thinking about this--
there was a studio in--
it was based in India.
And there was a student who
was redesigning some apartments
in India.
I mean, it was based on
a one week trip to India.
And the student had
very over zealously
redesigned the units
of the apartment.
And during the
review-- and I was
one of the reviewers--
he said and one
of my main interventions-- and
I hate this word interventions,
you know, it's so masculine.
You know, like, whatever, design
actions, planning actions.
And he said one of
my main interventions
is to bring down this wall so
that when the Indian woman is
cooking she can
talk to her family.
And I was like, my goodness!
You know, like, to just erase
like, the histories of South
Asian feminisms.
But the studio is very helpful
in that way, because space,
the way in which we
are producing space,
and the way in which
designers produce space
to a studio project
really brings to the fore
like, all of these
biases that we have.
And of course, this turned into
a very good learning moment
because the instructor,
the reviewers, all of us
had a very important
conversation
on South Asian feminisms.
[audio out]
Hello.
My name is [? numrata. ?]
I'm from Mumbai, India,
but I'm a RISD
undergrad currently.
So, hello, [? hansie. ?]
This morning I was in a
workshop called masculinities,
and we learned the
concept of taking
space versus making space.
So I was wondering how
you would encourage
the idea of making space in a
studio especially for students.
Just because I mean, a lot of
taking up and making of space
is like, a lot of it you learn
at home or from your culture,
but a part of it is also
from the education system.
So I was wondering how you
would encourage students
to be more encouraging
towards other students
and like, help
everyone you express
their opinions and their--
yeah, that's about it.
[audio out]
Well, maybe I can
ask Sy to continue
to talk about that
studio example,
and ask you if you
hadn't been there,
do you think that conversation
would have happened?
And what were the responses
of students that were
listening to the conversation?
Do you feel like I
guess, how much of it
is our job to show that
it's OK to challenge?
And how do we do that in a way
that also shows that it's OK
to-- that you don't
have to have--
that it's OK to say this
makes me feel uncomfortable?
You don't necessarily have to
have a fully formed argument.
I do think the reason why it
was such a good learning moment
in that studio was two reasons.
One, because the
instructor of this studio
is someone who's deeply steeped
in design politics in India.
And I think that's very
important for instructors.
Like, when they're going off
and working, particularly
in the global south,
we're going with so many--
I mean, going to Sidney's
point on decolonization,
we're going with so
many wrong assumptions
on how these societies work.
So one, is it is very helpful
because the instructor
was deeply steeped in the
design politics of the place.
And he created an opening
for the conversation.
And secondly, was a
composition of reviewers.
There were many women reviewers.
And so it was just helpful.
And this is not to say that
men can't be feminists.
My father is a feminist.
But really, the
composition of reviewers
was equally important
in enabling or fostering
that conversation.
So I do think it's important
when we are working in context
that are unfamiliar to us,
that the instructor just knows
the context and the review.
And this is something
that keeps coming up.
There's the Dean
Diversity Initiative.
Like, really, we
need to diversify
the reviewers who are
coming and engaging
with students in studio.
[audio out]
I feel like I need to respond
to the question regarding
take and make space I
think is really interesting
and try to link it
to the experience
that you had in your
[inaudible] room.
I would say that that would a
wonderful concept of teaching
our students to take space
rather than make space.
And I would say that what
I found it to be really
an eye opener was
in our seminar when
we started surveying the
actual courses that they were
currently taking
of all their core,
history, architecture
presentation,
and looking at precedents.
Without looking at the
faculty that was teaching,
it was mind blowing to see that
still 95% were the male canons,
which is still shocking to me.
And what I found
interesting is I
was trying to tell my
students well, speak up, help
the faculty.
Here some other resources.
And I realized that
our students are very
vulnerable of taking space.
But what I found
interesting is how powerful
the collective as
a community can
be to making certain changes.
So when the class and
myself put it together like,
showing the results of the
survey coming from the seminar
course, it really
made huge impacts.
And so it comes down to not only
take space, but a safe space.
So I would say yes, let's
teach our students take,
make, but create a safe
space for opportunities
to emerge of making different.
So I did have a Chinese
student that when
we created the seminar, we
stated this is a safe space.
There's nothing wrong
that you can say.
And we realize
culturally, the student
has also been removed
from certain information.
And so I provided
Lin [inaudible],,
a Chinese woman architect
for him to study,
and looking at it in terms
of when imperial China.
And it was informative
for that student in terms
of the learning process.
And so I think that
it's very natural.
You know, I've done it before
to say, why are you sexualizing
that woman in your Photoshop?
I still do it as a shock value.
But we generally
forget that men,
they need a safe space to
of making error, and for us
not to penalize some of the
ignorance that has been learned
potentially at home
or our culture,
or our political environment.
So I just wanted to link the
idea of make, take, and safe.
For us not to be judgmental, and
to evolve are our discipline.
Yeah.
And I think recognizing how
much power you have as students.
Where I'm seeing changes
happening in schools,
it's places like this where
student groups are getting
together and saying like,
why is this not being taught?
Why are we not having
these conversations,
and forcing the faculty and
forcing the schools to change?
So keep that in mind.
Like, work together.
I think we have time
for one more question.
Great.
Hi.
a
landscape architecture student.
So kind of going off
of what you're saying,
and understanding that you
work in these institutions
with competing pedagogies,
I want to ask like,
do you feel heard by
your institutions?
And kind of put you
on the spot like,
in critique of the
institutions that you're
a part of or in praise.
How can you be more supported
and what are your demands?
[audio out]
I guess I feel like maybe a
lot of the conversations we've
been having today
has been around how
we as educators think within
the context of our classes
and our teaching.
And I wish-- and this
isn't a shortcoming
on the part of my institution.
I feel like it's a question
I haven't raised yet.
But I feel like there needs
to be more responsibility
on our part to kind of think
about the front end of why
there isn't more diversity
within architecture schools,
or on architecture panels.
And it has to do with the fact
that there are these entry
barriers into our profession.
It's an extremely
expensive degree.
It's a long degree.
I think the way that we have
to kind of rethink the way
that we advertise courses,
that we recruit students,
that we even write job
postings for faculty positions.
Because all of those
encourage a certain model
of a person who is able to take
on this kind of discipline.
So I wish maybe that there
was more conversation
on the front end of this issue.
[audio out]
Sonia, you look [inaudible].
Yeah.
So you know, the
students of this school
put on a fantastic initiative.
Or since the SMA or SAM--
I was kind of mix up them.
[inaudible]---- list collected
basically words like
transparency, or describing
observations they had made
in the school.
And I think all those
observations were on point.
And so anything that you
can do that we can do--
I mean, I think we need
to try harder probably.
But it's incredibly difficult
in the system that we're in.
So that's maybe a
point to make here.
So I think this is
basically a thank you
to you to bringing
up certain problems
that we have at this school.
And hopefully, an encouragement
to not forget and continue
this initiative.
The problem of this
school, believe me,
it's in every school.
And I wanted to say
thank you actually.
Various schools are listening
to the Woman Design Group
at Harvard.
So you guys have set
a really great model.
We are aware of [inaudible]
that you brought last year
or in this past spring.
In terms of
institution, I would say
depends on the structure
of each college,
of each architecture program.
I would say that the biggest
game changer that could occur
is held in the
department chair role,
or whether the school has
just the dean position, not
a department chair.
I know that our department
chair creates the course table.
So whoever is in charge
of creating course table,
has to really think about the
material that is being put out
for the students.
[audio out]
In terms of what I'm
experienced, to me,
that's the most powerful
position of changing pedagogy
for a school.
[audio out]
Unfortunately we're out of time.
But let me end by saying that in
terms of institutional support,
I feel an incredible amount
of support from my students,
from all of you.
And so, regardless of the
bigger institutional fights
we have ahead of us, let me just
say thank you to all of you.
[applause]
