Studio at Large

Book excerpt: For more than a decade, architects and students at the University of Washington have been working with squatter communities in Mexico, migrant laborers in eastern Washington, and Indian reservations of the inland West as well as communities in Cuba, India, and Africa to provide housing, schools, clinics, and other vital structures. Led by Sergio Palleroni, these pioneering design/build programs have combined innovative architectural training with cross-cultural immersion, social activism, and environmental science, using design skills and hands-on construction projects to confront poverty and urgent social problems one building at a time. Studio at Large documents the international and regional community studios organized by Palleroni and his colleagues, typically held in intensive ten-week builds in marginalized communities. Involving community members and students, these studios promote maximum use of recycled or inexpensive, locally available materials, as well as lighting and energy systems that reduce utility costs and promote resource conservation. They serve as models for making architectural education relevant to urgent social problems, helping communities mobilize indigenous resources and social capital to develop creative problem solving skills and long-term sustainable practices that protect rather than erode cultural identity, dignity, and stability. By linking sustainable design to active community participation, by demonstrating the interdependence between the way the first and third worlds live, and by making the whole process into a pedagogical experience these design/build programs bring home the lessons of global interdependence in a vivid and durable way.