"Hay muchos jóvenes interesados en la relación entre el diseño y lo social, hay más conexión y comprensión de cómo a través de un buen diseño se puede crear un compromiso mayor con la justicia social y espacial. Es el papel que tratamos de incentivar en Harvard". "There are many young people interested in the relationship between design and social issues; there is a better connection and understanding of how, through good design, you can build a greater commitment to social and spatial justice. This is the role we try to encourage at Harvard".
"We have tried to position the Harvard school on order to gain awareness of what is happening in the world and this means striving to educate architects to have a role different than the traditional, that is, as simple executors of projects. Our goal is to train more pro-active professionals, who can earn a more prominent position in society. At least in the United States, in recent decades we have seen that the relative symmetry that existed between architecture and other professions, such as law or medicine, has dramatically changed. Architects held more important positions and were better off financially than they are today. Our role in terms of income has been undermined, but not in terms of power, and by power I mean the ability to change society and to have an impact on the built environment. What we want is, on one hand, to educate informed professionals, good at what they do, as a way to maintain a relevant position. On the other hand, we try to comprehend the roles we can play in the context of a greater understanding of the built environment, now related not only to buildings, but to the landscape, the city, infrastructure, governance, the politics of an organization, engineering and even public health. Our school has established a better connection with other disciplines so that designers may occupy a different place than previously. In general terms the role of the architect is very limited. We have had celebrated and world-renowned architects, but they often work on large-scale projects with huge budgets. There are very few famous architects actually engaged in everyday projects, such as housing or the construction of new cities. This has led many young people to be more interested in the relationship between design and social issues; there is a better connection and understanding of how, through good design, you can build a greater commitment to social and spatial justice. This is the role we try to encourage at Harvard. We use the Graduate School of Design to connect with different disciplines within the university. Being a research university means we can use research as a mechanism to establish greater connections with the rest of the university. We promote multi- sector projects to investigate topics such as the future of cities, healthy cities or the impact of aging in urban changes. If we want to deepen understanding the multiplicity of factors, we need multiple experiences on the table. The collaboration between the school of design, the rest of the University and practical experience becomes an important positioning strategy for the school, which not only allows to create new knowledge but has an impact on the way we teach. It is not simply about doing research, but about connecting research with teaching. The city It has been proven that cities - through the densification of buildings, places and people - are a more efficient way to share resources and develop a community. But today there is no clear idea about what the city is, where it is, where it ends and what are its limits. We can’t tell the city from the suburbs, everything is urban. In this context, trying to locate the cities as places of spatial democracy is quite debatable. At the same time, we see a dramatic migration of what used to be the countryside to urban areas. This happens because we don't have a solution for the countryside and the social advancement of rural areas. It would be a mistake to focus only on urban issues. What we try to do at Harvard is to develop a broader concept of urbanization. The city, its expansion, the suburbs, the region, everything must be regarded as part of a dynamic ecosystem. What happens in the city is also related to what happens in the countryside. It's somewhat like acupuncture; you push something here, and it affects a point over there. . Many of the problems are also related to the interrelationship between individual rights and broader social purposes. We cannot be a purely individualistic society in which everyone does what he or she wants. There must be a negotiation in terms of what we as a community have to deal with to understand the role of the city in a different way. This is why there is a distinction between the suburbs and the cities in the American context. People live in the suburbs but spend the day in the city. But many cities die at night because everyone returns to the suburbs. What is also happening in cities such as San Francisco is that people have returned to inhabit downtown areas and spend the weekend in the suburbs. We have much to learn about how to make cities more livable and how to create an environment that is also attractive to the city dweller, who wont need to live outside the city and use it only for business or functional reasons".
Realizado en el GAM, el simposio Ecological Urbanism fue dictado en conjunto con Charles Waldheim, director del programa de Landscape Architecture de Harvard; Pedro Gadanho, curador de arquitectura contemporánea del MoMa, e invitados locales. Como parte del evento se presentó la versión en español del libro Urbanismo Ecológico, cuya edición estuvo a cargo de Mostafavi y Gareth Doherty. Held at the GAM (Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center), the Ecological Urbanism symposium was delivered in conjunction with Charles Waldheim, director of the Landscape Architecture program at Harvard; Pedro Gadanho, curator of contemporary architecture at MoMA, and local guests. The Spanish version of the book Ecological Urbanism published by Mostafavi and Gareth Doherty was presented as part of the event.
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