Culture, Society, Space - Penn State Architecture

Former Bethlehem Baptist Church © Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin. From Maura Lucking, “(Black) Church of Schindler. Modernism on Compton Avenue,” Faktur: Documents and Architecture, (Fall/Winter 2020), 6-31.

Architecture as Documentary Form

Lead Faculty: Pep Avilés

Team: Matthew Kennedy

Funding: Mr. Robert P. O’Hara and Ms. Maureen A. O’Hara Fund; Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts; Department of Architecture, Penn State University; The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Columbia University; The School of Architecture, University of Technology, Sydney; Centre for Documentary Architecture, Bauhaus-University, Weimar.

In the last decade, the field of architecture, its agents, and its audiences have evolved significantly. One of the most notable developments in this evolution has been the proliferation of research-based architectural practices. We seek to explore topics, locations, and architectural concerns that function as micro-narratives that illuminate larger issues of global culture. We are interested in the construction of material arguments from local perspectives, linking them to long-durée historical threads within architecture on the one hand, and current political, economic, and cultural concerns on the other. Finally, we are interested in how these investigations affect, inform, or influence the design processes of contemporary architectural practices. We believe that a slow and documented form of architectural research will open up new perspectives for meaning and action, providing an operational tool to understand our culture, as well as to present new truths based on documented facts.

Film Still from the documentary Landscape Healing, directed by Richard John Seymour and produced by 3RW arkitekter in 2019.

Map of the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad and its connection to the Mineral Lands, 1852. Library of Congress.

Coal Culture: Architecture After Mining

Lead Faculty: Pep Avilés

Team: Laia Celma (co-PI), Miranda Esposito, Ken Davis, Natasha Miles, Scott Richardson

Funding: E+D Fund, Ecology and Design, Landscape Architecture Program. Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture; CDR, Collaborative Design Research Fund, Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture; Oslo Architecture Triennale.

With the background of the ongoing climate change and global warming, this research explores the political, cultural, and environmental spaces that coal mining industry generated (directly and indirectly) in Pennsylvania. The work critically analyzes the history of coal as a source of energy and its role in the definition of spaces and architectures in modernity (whether actual or metaphorical). We focus in the anthracite region in PA as a case study, understood as the locus where larger global events can be perused.

Aerial view of an operating open-pit anthracite mine. Leigh Anthracite Corporation. Tamaqua, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania.

Image credit: Cathy Braasch

Collaborative Practices

Lead Faculty: Cathy Braasch

Team: Patricia Kucker

Funding: Faculty Research Grant

This project is a literature review of pedagogies and best practices for collaborative learning that include evidence of effectiveness. There is broad research for these practices for K-12, but less so for education art and design education. In addition to the collaborative practices there is a need to explore the role social dynamics, cultural differences and power play in group-work conflicts. The literature review as an outcome will form the framework for analyzing and developing collaborative practices in first-year design studio education while also considering the success of a diverse student demographics.

Image Credit: Estate of Robert Reed

Drawing Laboratory: The Pedagogy of Robert Reed

Lead Faculty: Cathy Braasch

Funding: Faculty Research Grant, O’Hara Excellence Fund, Department of Architecture

The publication, Drawing Laboratory: The Pedagogy of Robert Reed, documents and analyzes the undocumented curriculum of Robert Reed (1938-2014). Reed taught drawing for nearly fifty years and was the first – and still only – black professor tenured at the Yale School of Art. His curriculum is key to understanding the Bauhaus legacy in the United States and the curricula of contemporary art programs. Based on interviews, Reed’s archives, and the implementation of curriculum at the 2019 Robert Reed Drawing Workshops, this book provides access to Reed’s pedagogical innovations for a broad audience of art and design students and educators.

‘Valango Wharf’ project by Studio Zwede. Image Credit: Studio Zewde

Equitable Teaching Materials: Documenting Precedents by Underrepresented Designers

Lead Faculty: Cathy Braasch

Team: Joshua Achampong, Alisa Asare, Claudia Bowes, Luke Scanlon, and Sydney Yakowenko

Funding: Student Engagement Grants, Breanna and Christopher Artuso Scholarship for Internships in the College of Arts and Architecture, Department of Architecture

This project creates documentation of precedents by underrepresented architects equitable to resources available for widely published projects. Precedents are the core of any architectural curriculum. Many precedent publications used in architecture schools primarily contain projects by overrepresented designers (mainly white and international males. Evidence shows improved retention and academic success for students of color who have access to a more diverse representation of successful architects. The precedent guide will help make these projects more accessible to students and faculty and facilitate diversity and inclusion in design school curriculum.

The Impact of Studio Culture on Students of Color in Schools of Art and Design

Lead Faculty: Cathy Braasch

Team: Wanda B. Knight (PI), Patricia Kucker (co-PI), Marc Miller, Joel Priddy, Erica Quinn, Angela Rothrock

Funding: Faculty Research Grant

Studio-based learning is a highly regarded educational model in art and design schools that relies on social and collaborative teaching and learning. Following a successful College of Arts and Architecture 2015 recruitment initiative, the enrollment of students of color increased, but students of color leave the Stuckeman School at a higher rate than white peers. This study focuses on first-year students’ experiences. Through quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews, the study’s outcomes will lead to a framework for improving racial equity, inclusion, and retention of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) across the Stuckeman School and School of Visual Arts.

Joan Miró at Antoni Gaudí’s Parc Güell in 1954 photographed by Brassaï.

Postwar Revivals. Media, Historiography, and Postwar Architecture

Lead Faculty: Pep Avilés

This ongoing research concentrates in postwar architectural revivals, and its impact in modern historiography. We pay special attention to the influence that media had – photography, film, etc. – in the understanding of architecture as image and its contribution to the aesthetic developments of the second half of the twentieth century.

A participatory design game for school design, developed by Baupiloten, Berlin.

Participatory Design: Designing for Stakeholders.

Lead Faculty: Alexandra Staub

Participatory design is a process by which users and other stakeholders are involved in determining the program and further design aspects of a project. In this research project, you will catalog various participatory design methods in order to analyze how stakeholders can be better integrated in the design process. Your work will involve an analysis of existing projects and a survey of design professionals and policymakers.

Sidewalk Labs Toronto, a project designed “from the internet up.” Image credit: Heatherwick Studio.

Social Justice in the Built Environment: The Role of Technology in Urban Settings

Lead Faculty: Alexandra Staub

Technology has become a ubiquitous aspect of the built environment. From “smart cities” to “smart buildings” to “smart appliances”, tech projects claim to better the future for everyone. Yet who really benefits, and how can technology be used more equitably? This project examines technological aspects of the built environment through the lens of race, class, and gender. You will analyze case studies of tech-based projects, projecting them onto the population they are designed to serve. This work will examine how technology can potentially be harnessed for a socially more just built environment through re-aligning design priorities.