The Social in Architecture: Designing Risk and Opportunity through Housing

The first in a series of public events connected to the theme of 'the social in architecture', this talk by Jonathan Massey builds on a number of events that have taken place at the ICA recently, such as Urban Planning as Social Cleansing, the Architects for Social Housing residency and A Heavy Nonpresence: Housing Workshop.  

Responding to the need for a sustained international and intergenerational conversation about the intersections between public institutions, social housing and resettlement, Jonathan Massey addresses the question of the social:  

'Risk and opportunity are organizing concepts for contemporary neoliberal society. Our politics often play out through debates over who bears risks of modernization—such as vulnerability to pollution, climate change, economic volatility, and creative destruction in the economy and in the built environment—and who benefits from change.

In this talk I explore some of the ways this process plays out through the production, design and consumption of housing in the United States. By reviewing historical and contemporary topographies of risk and opportunity in our dwellings, I outline a vision of how architecture builds the social.'

Preceding the public talk is a closed seminar for CHASE PhD students, social housing residents and housing activists. The seminar includes presentations by Samir Pandya, Kate Macintosh and Geraldine Dening. Topics to discuss include the role of architects in creating new social forms and solutions to housing problems, past and future models of local collaboration, and the problems and opportunities of utopian concepts.