Shaping the future of architecture
At a time when major building developments continue to radically alter cities such as Sheffield, often driven by the short-term market-led demands of clients and developers, many people now feel that architects have become too inward looking and marginalised from the people who use their buildings. A project to examine ways of changing the outlook and focus of architects is being led by Dr Tatjana Schneider of the University of Sheffield's School of Architecture.
The project seeks to understand the architect not as someone who simply reacts to short-term market-led demands, but rather as someone who acts with and on behalf of the longer-term desires and needs of the multitude of people who build, live in, occupy, visit, and perceive architecture. Dr Schneider and her team are interested in practices that produce built environments which prioritise human need and which consciously explore and expand the realm of the individual and social freedom.
Alternative architectural praxis can be defined as a way of approaching architecture that focuses on the processes of architectural production rather than the product. An alternative praxis generally pushes at the boundaries of social, professional, organisational and ideological engagement and is therefore often viewed by the general public and the architectural profession as being 'on the edge' of so-called mainstream architectural practices.
In collaboration with Professor Jeremy Till of the University of Westminster and postdoctoral researcher Nishat Awan, Dr Schneider began with an analysis of historic examples of alternative architectural praxis. The team collated more than 200 examples from around the world of how architects, both past and present, adopt new approaches to their work. The case studies included examples of co-operatives, as well as political, feminist and participatory approaches to building design. Dr Schneider also interviewed a number of project partners who are at the forefront of new architectural praxis, for example MUF _ London, an art and architecture practice that concentrate on work in the public realm.
Following this early research Dr Schneider and her team developed a more precise definition of alternative architectural praxis. Dr Schneider explains: "Over the past decade we have watched as architecture has been reduced to pure form. Architects need to engage in dialogue with user groups, people within communities that will be using the buildings that they design".
In 2007 Dr Schneider and Prof Jeremy Till organised a conference, 'Alternate Currents', in order to bring this definition to a discussion and evaluation of contemporary examples of alternative praxis. The conference spawned a publication featuring essays addressing new ways of approaching architectural practice, whilst other project outcomes include a RIBA research symposium entitled 'Changing Practices' (due to take place on 24 September 2009) and a book, due to be published by Routledge in 2011. Dr Schneider: "We wanted to examine the concept of alternative architectural praxis in order to make a major contribution to the debate as to how architectural practice needs to evolve in order to meet the changing economic, social and environmental contexts in which contemporary architectural practice is situated".
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Notes: This research was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), one of the UK Government's 7 Research Councils.