week 2 response

I was surprised while reading "Professional Practice: Can professionalism be taught in school?"  On page 371 it says "If the candidate gets an x in construction, he is registered as an architect; if he gets an x in design, he is registered as an engineer; and if he gets an x in both design and construction, he is registered as an architectural engineer."  This is very different from the way we think of architects and engineers now.  Today, engineers are generally the ones to make sure the building is functional no matter what it looks like, while the architect worries about the design and less about the details of how to make the design function.  The title is also deceptive.  The article isn't about arguments for or against education vs apprenticeships, but a history of the progression to more education.  I think this basic question about the value of education hold true in any trade.  There is a limit to how much can be learned as theory and be able to apply to real life scenarios.  You can learn all the codes, but the only way to learn about dealing with problems dealing with code it when actually faced with the problem.  However, there is still a need for education to make sure people have learned the codes before they are allowed to build anything.

The other two article both deal with community projects and history.  In "Community Engagement," I was interested to see how some community-design programs survived during the time of lowered interest and decrease in available funds only to fail later when the original founders left. "Community-design programs need not only to have dedicated leadership but to plan carefully for transitions and to find ways of maintaining institutional support."  This puts more of a burden on leaders to find and train replacements and to take make sure they are still available to guide their replacements even after they have left until the transition is final and their help is no longer required.  This can be very challenging for some people, since it requires giving over most of the responsibility while they are still active, and standing by even if the new leader decides to take a different approach, such as the transition between designing for greater social change or just on a project by project basis, which, according to the article, was the general shift recently.

"100 years of humanitarian design" showed an interesting mix of of approaches to slums and natural disasters over time.  Especially interesting to me was the idea of governments providing funds to people to build their own homes and the different results.  The biggest problem for most of community-design projects is funding, so by having people build their own homes, they reduce the financial burden of paying contractors.  The overall results for all approaches is that people have their own minds and don't like being told what to do or how to live.  Most of the failed experiments occurred when the government tried to forcible move people.  When designing for a wealthy client, the client chooses the architect based off previous work, so they have an idea of what might be built for them.  In most failed projects, the people who would be living in the housing had no say over the architect or design.  The other problem is making people feel dependent, that they are living off charity from the government.  Unfortunately, it has become more accepted.  But generally, people who don't grow up depending on charity are too proud to ask for it and feel insulted when someone tries to force charity on them.  This is why trailers would be so popular, since they could be bought for less than typical homes, so people could afford them with out applying for governmental assistance.  However, I'm not sure how accurate the statistics are, since some trailers aren't owned by the poor, but by those who have the trailer as a second home or who just like to travel.  Many people in campgrounds are retired and have a desire to see more of the world now that they aren't tied to one place by a job.  A trailer is an easy way to bring home with you where ever you go.