This afternoon I took a break from my occupation of studio and I went to a workshop on the commons at Occupy Philly and we discussed some of these questions. We sat in and around the empty fountain at City Hall. They gave a quick introduction in which the facilitators explained what commons meant, which was space that is owned, maintained and for lack of a better word, managed by the people. This is not the same as city-owned public space, which is controlled by the city's various bureaucratic departments.
Then we split up into four groups and were each given a giant yellow sheet of paper, one for each topic: Transportation, Education, Vacant Lots and Libraries/Recreation Centers. Our task was to re-imagine these public goods and services as commons, that is, not run by the city or an executive, but by Philadelphians themselves. As would be designers we like to think that studying a user or user typology (that is one person or a certain group of people who will, you guessed it, "use" your design) gives us enough of an insight to know how to make an appropriate intervention that will function well. We may visit the site, we may even test out the design in studio, but we will not live with it everyday and architects are rarely accountable to the public if it does not work.
But the great premise, and promise, of this workshop is that the plans for these systems were user-determined. For each topic there was a small group of 3-4 people who didn't know each other, who were not necessarily in possession of any specialized knowledge on the topic, shouting out ideas. We were given 20 minutes and at the end each group presented their ideas to everyone.
Here is the direct link to the audio/pictures from that workshop: http://occupyphillymedia.org/audio/private-public-commons-reimagining-philly-report-backs
The transportation group had plans for improving accessibility, lowering fares, connecting transit to other transportation methods and making it more pleasant to ride. The libraries group wanted to make libraries community run, so that the city could not simply close them when it wanted to make budget cuts. People would contribute books, determine what was available at the library, staff it themselves and could even write their own books for the shelves. The education group wanted to create free schools, the curriculum would be determined by the community and not simply dictated by professional organizations, corporations and the need to get a job. And vacant lots became parks, hair salons, community meeting spaces, schools, party spaces or even vertical farms (and many of these functions could probably happen on the same lot).
So that all sounds great, but what about this will work practically? I think the Occupy protests are an example of how these self-organized systems can be successful. Occupy Philly has given shelter and food to hundreds of homeless people and protesters daily, they've organized a tech tent, medics, media, workshops, have working groups, and basically have a functioning small town in Dilworth Plaza. Why can't working groups of people make decisions about the things that happen in their everyday lives? Why do they need the city to approve it, or a group of design professionals to create an extravagant plaza with colored steam?
Occupy works because its not just the usual activist line-up, all agreeing with each other, but a diverse group encouraged to think for themselves. During our workshop people came and left, giving the opportunity for fairly independent input (so the ideas were not shaped by groupthink). It may not look pretty to corporate funders, but I'm willing to bet on the argument that well coordinated groups of diverse people like this can come up with more practical, functional and imaginative planning ideas than a group of architects, planners and city bureaucrats. Just imagine telling a group of architects to re-think the city in 20 minutes, they would waste the entire time just arguing about how to talk about redesigning the city.
Thanks for sharing this sara-v. The longevity of the Occupy movement is really something that I believe is bringing change to our city, precisely through excercises like this one. I have not read Surrowiekci's Wisdom of Crowds, but it sounds pretty spot-on - almost like what a democratic society pretends to be. Maybe this is just the capitalism in me coming out, but I'm not sure if a group of diverse individuals is all that is needed in a decision. It seems as if one, or a few, experts on the given subject would help things along - someone, for example, with technical expertise on the mechanics behind the SEPTA subway operations, or someone who understands how to make a building go together. While an entire group of these "experts" might simply argue for all of their allotted 20 minutes, placing a few of them within a larger group of individuals not within the field of inquire might help the situation out. I'm sure Surowiecki discusses this, but this is my initial reaction.
ReplyDeleteHe does discuss this and gives examples of situations where groups of people who are diverse outperform single experts or groups of experts. There are other conditions which he says must be satisfied for effective decision-making besides just a diverse group, one of which is that people must be able to make independent decisions without influence from their peers. That doesn't mean experts can't add to the discussion, a guy joined our group who was a remediation expert and gave some pretty valuable input on the subject. So you're right there, bringing different kinds of info to the table as an expert can help. But what I think is important to realize is that a group of only one kind of expert is limited, as architects we are holed up in studio all the time and all share similar curriculum. We simply can't know every aspect of a situation, there isn't enough time, even if we research ourselves to death about it and so it helps to have people with different experiences in the mix. my point was also to poke at the idea of "expert" in general, because sometimes the most innovative ideas come from people who have no specialized or formal knowledge on the matter. Experts (yes, even architects) tend to be so sure of their own knowledge to the detriment of their work, and to society. How often do designers consult the people who will live with their designs directly? And I'm not talking about presenting a preconceived design to the public for feedback, what if you started the design process with those discussions? If designers just asked for input outside of their colleagues, and outside of what their computer told them, they might form designs that are more livable.
ReplyDeleteavoiding expert echo chambers, that's what I was trying to say...
ReplyDeletePersonally, I feel that designers do not actively engage the public in the process as much as they should. Sure designs are presented to the general public after numerous drafts have been rejected by the "experts," but what if public interested weighed more heavily during the process of creating initial drafts? I think projects can too easily become lost somewhere between theory and hypothetical situations, if practicality and real-life experience are not given careful consideration. In a later post I intended to argue the my belief that the general public is not sufficiently involved in this process, brainstorming the possible outcomes resulting from beginning design with open discussion. (as asked by sarav in the post above).
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