How can architects best increase their engagement with building users and wider society to provide better architecture? Since the mid 1990s government policy has promoted the idea of greater social participation in the production and management of the built environment but there has been limited direction to the practising architect. Reviewing international cases and past experiences to analyze what lessons have been learnt, this book argues for participation within other related disciplines, and makes a set of recommendations for architectural practices and other key actors.

How can architects best increase their engagement with building users and wider society to provide better architecture? Since the mid 1990s government policy has promoted the idea of greater social participation in the production and management of the built environment but there has been limited direction to the practising architect. Reviewing international cases and past experiences to analyze what lessons have been learnt, this book argues for participation within other related disciplines, and makes a set of recommendations for architectural practices and other key actors.

For the first time, this book defines how social participation can be incorporated into architecture in a successful and practical manner, which will better serve both architecture and society. International cases and past experiences are looked at to analyse what lessons have been learnt, putting forward a set of recommendations for architectural practices and other key actors.

Socially engaged architecture is a broad and emerging architectural genre that promises to redefine architecture from a market-driven profession to a mix of social business, altruism, and activism that intends to eradicate poverty, resolve social exclusion, and construct an egalitarian global society. The Routledge Companion to Architecture and Social Engagement offers a critical enquiry of socially engaged architecture’s current context characterized by socio-economic inequity, climate change, war, increasing global poverty, microfinance, the evolving notion of professionalism, the changing conception of public, and finally the growing academic interest in re-visioning the social role of architecture. Organized around case studies from the United States, Brazil, Venezuela, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Nepal, Pakistan, Iran, Thailand, Germany, Australia, Taiwan, and Japan the book documents the most important recent developments in the field. By examining diverse working methods and philosophies of socially engaged architecture, the handbook shows how socially engaged architecture is entangled in the global politics of poverty, reconstruction of the public sphere, changing role of the state, charity, and neoliberal urbanism. The book presents debates around the issue of whether architecture actually empowers the participators and alleviates socio-economic exclusion or if it instead indirectly sustains an exploitive capitalism. Bringing together a range of theories and case studies, this companion offers a platform to facilitate future lines of inquiry in education, research, and practice.

Should all-inclusive engagement be the major task of architecture? All-Inclusive Engagement in Architecture: Towards the Future of Social Change presents the case that the answer is yes. Through original contributions and case studies, this volume shows that socially engaged architecture is both a theoretical construct and a professional practice navigating the global politics of poverty, charity, health, technology, neoliberal urbanism, and the discipline's exclusionary basis. The scholarly ideas and design projects of fifty-eight thought leaders demonstrate the architect's role as a revolutionary social agent. Exemplary works are included from the United States, Mexico, Canada, Africa, Asia and Europe. This book offers a comprehensive overview and in-depth analysis of all-inclusive engagement in public interest design for instructors, students, and professionals alike, showing how this approach to architecture can bring forth a radical reformation of the profession and its relationship to society.

Should all-inclusive engagement be the major task of architecture? All-Inclusive Engagement in Architecture: Towards the Future of Social Change presents the case that the answer is yes. Through original contributions and case studies, this volume shows that socially engaged architecture is both a theoretical construct and a professional practice navigating the global politics of poverty, charity, health, technology, neoliberal urbanism, and the discipline's exclusionary basis. The scholarly ideas and design projects of 58 thought leaders demonstrate the architect's role as a revolutionary social agent. Exemplary works are included from the United States, Mexico, Canada, Africa, Asia, and Europe. This book offers a comprehensive overview and in-depth analysis of all-inclusive engagement in public interest design for instructors, students, and professionals alike, showing how this approach to architecture can bring forth a radical reformation of the profession and its relationship to society.

This book examines the extent to which the insights of STS can be used to analyse the role of architecture in and for social life. The contributions examine the question of whether architecture and thus materiality as a whole has agency. The book also proposes a theoretical and methodological approach on how to research architecture's agency.