Categories: Design/Build Education

McDonald, Shannon, Chad Schwartz, and Laura Morthland. “Design Build: Collaborative Labor Creating Community.” In Globalizing Architecture / Flows and Disruptions: 102nd ACSA Annual Meeting, edited by J. Stuart and M. Wilson, 658-666. New York: ACSA Press, 2014.

Abstract: The call for papers addresses design/build with two distinct approaches: the local/technical and the global/social. Unfortunately, this bifurcation excludes design/build approaches that focus on the social development or redevelopment of the local, a process embedded within the psyche of the place. Southern Illinois, as Foucault would argue, is a “technical” construct – as in the “joinings of knowledge and power”, occurring within the local/social with deep global roots.1 In Cairo Illinois, a local/social design/ build has been underway for the past year. The project looks to be a catalyst for not only the building of architecture but the re-energizing of a once flourishing community that finds itself mired in decay and affected by the global condition. This design/build project has the potential to critically expand the meanings of creating architecture, community and curriculum by asking the question: how does design/build operate in a social capacity?

Co-authors: Laura Morthland, SIU + Shannon McDonald, SIU (lead author)

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