User-Generated Urbanism

The urban designers and planners can attempt to design and plan for a city or a place that is performing effectively and has high level of livability and comfort. However, there are always area for improvement and in my personal experience from Better Cities and from Phil Stubbs’ talk on Better Block, I have learned that the community can sometimes provide better insight on what a place need as they are the ones who are using the space and experiencing the day to day changes.

I found this link that talks about User-Generated Urbanism

The idea of crowd-sourcing in architecture and urban planning is beginning to take shape as more and more organization like Better Block and Better Cities begin to form. However, it is not a concept which is widely discussed in the built environment community. I felt that the people in the planning and architecture field feels the need for them to be responsible for the design for the people and the public should remain as passive participants as users in the place designed for them. This could probably be down to egoism. In the field of architecture, it is widely accepted that architects are egoistic beings and every good architecture should have ego. This could be the result of the modernist era school of thought where the older generation architects are taught to be master-builders in the mould of Frank Lloyd Wright, who famously rearrange the furniture of houses he visits as he feels he knows better as a designer compared to the layman. He could be right to think so but the times has change and the character of Howard Roark may no longer work in a world where open-source and community-based society reign supreme over individuality.

I recall an architect from Thailand called Patama Roonrakwit who I had the pleasure of meeting and attending one of her talks. She conduct her practice as an architect in the role of facilitator in a user-generated design in the community. During her talk, she was bombarded with questions which doubted her role and definition as an architect due to her unconventional methods of design. The feedback given that day on her methods made me realize that the building community is not ready to accept an open source design method that involves the users and clients. It also made me realize that Patama could pave way for a new form or architectural practice that actively engage the community to take part in the process of design which is not wrong either. Below is a video link of an interview with Patama which truly inspired me.

Patama Roonrakwit Interview