Design in Development and Emergency Practice
Designing within the emergency and development context requires a deep understanding of the complexity of actors and agents in addition to the physical domain. The module aims to equip students with an understanding of the potential role of design and possible approaches they might take to engaging in this complex context. The intention is to support students on their journey to becoming reflective practitioners, rejecting prescribed solutions and instead building the skills to listen, learn, adjust, and adapt in the conditions of complexity and uncertainty typical of the contexts in which development practitioners work.
Using Forensic Architecture’s approach to analyzing events, students explored contexts of their choice, and developed videos to represent this information. Based on this foundation, theoretical frameworks were then applied and design proposals developed which responded to the analysis. The proposals range from participatory engagement plans, mapping of various stakeholders and how they might engage through drawings and representation of possible outcomes spatially, to temporary installations.
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Melissa Kinnear
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Ubada Muti
Annika Grafweg
Supriya Akerkar
Bill Flinn
Charles Parrack
Zoe Jordan
Scott Sworts
Yasmeen Lari
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Priya Addanki
Rayappan Chockalingam
Justin Collins
Kuhu Gupta
Mohammed Haj Salih
Tanya Haldipur
Dinesha Kanagasundaram
Adlina Marsya
Kirra Mccollum
Adrian Mpanga-Sempa
Mihaela Petkova
Sumaiya Shameem
Claudia Vesga
Jamillatul Zakariah
Claudia Vesga: Community Resilience in the Face of Gentrification - Gentrification has been pushing out lower income African American and Hispanic American communities from their neighbourhoods to make way for wealthier and whiter people. East Austin is currently being gentrified due to the influx of tech companies from out of state. The design proposal aims to provide community resilience through the design of a cultural center to celebrate the history and customs and reinforce community agency and identity of east Austin. A cultural festival aims to improve the outsider perspective and assist the local black-owned and other minority-owned businesses financially, which have allowed communities of colour to thrive in the past despite existing systemic racism.
Adrian Sempa: Life Above The Waters - The aim of this project is to provide the refugees, along the White Nile State, with needed supportive measure to battle recurring flood. In these times of crisis, these refugees would food security and secure shelter, which would ultimately provide them with further defensive measures to live.
Dinesha Kanagasundaram: A Fishing Village's Alternate Reality - Gender socialisation and patriarchy affect women in many ways. The complex layers of issues that they have created are never-ending. However, it is almost impossible to eradicate a societal system that has been ceaseless for centuries. One thing we can change is by reducing the workloads of women. This is done by providing incremental solutions that could increase their resilience throughout their lives; this not only includes their daily lives, but also stages of preparedness and recovery before and after a disaster.
Justin Collins: The brief for the project is a local contemporary performance and educational space for Welsh Language, Arts and Culture on a sensitive site in the historic heartland of Wales. Using the National Eisteddfod as a development tool.
Kuhu Gupta: In India, where 95-98 % of women report feeling unsafe in public spaces, this project aims to create safe spaces using the coping strategies of safety, avoidance and empowerment to make women an equal stakeholder of the urban landscape.
Adlina Marsya: The Women's Edge - All citizens have a right to access all opportunities that a city can offer. This project refers to the value of public space and ensuring women, children, disabled and active retirees have equal access to the city as much as men do, in achieving a “fairer society”.
Mihaela Petkova: Civic Engagement in a Square of Political Power - The project is located in Sofia, Bulgaria and analyses the existing power imbalance between the government and the public, reflected in the urban environment. The design process aims to support collective work resulting in publically-owned and managed park and multifunctional pavilion.
Mohammed Haj Salih: Syria - The Beats of Resilience - The aim of this approach is to define new concepts and tools for an integrated and innovative discipline of reconstruction capable of providing a new resilient paradigm suitable to contemporary needs. The project will showcase new and alternative construction techniques, aiming to change perceptions of local materials for future growth of the rural community. The proposed approach is based on a process rather than a project. It is a series of intervention and plans which will allow for the reconstruction to be resource of economic development, through the involvement of locals.
Rayappan Chockalingam: Sea level rising for a coastal urban city - The project environment showcases the stratergies and intervention in one of the river mouths of the urban fabric which faces sea level rise and flooding annually. The major intervention is floating market which connects two extreme communities who stay in the hazardous zone inspite of extreme climate effects in the past few years. ehich aims to bring a financial micro economy and physical connection between them. The secondary intervention includes Sponge urban streets and mangrove along the coast to save water and reduce the sea level rise in the upcoming rise.
Sumaiya Shameem: The buoyant - The idea of a floating restaurent would benefit the farmers, becoming another opportunity for financial development. Traditional material such as bamboo, thatched roof, reed mesh and wood are used in the design structure of the restaurant.