The Architecture Beyond Capitalism School is a free, six-week-long virtual summer school launching in June 2021 by The Architecture Lobby. Space is limited, so get in quick.
The ABC School stems from a desire within the Lobby to critically interrogate the structures and systems of power that have made change difficult within design professions and institutions, as well as from a belief that architecture schools do not teach what and how they could. The ABC School is open to anyone wanting to better understand how architecture is part of larger class, race, gender, and extraction-based capitalist economies. Sessions will address inequity and inaccess to architectural education, burdens of debt on students, the precarious labor of students, faculty and staff, and it will prepare participants for a post-developer-driven mode of practice.
The Lobby is committed to long-term structural change, including the prototyping of new curricular structures and content, developing new modes of co-producing, and sharing knowledge equitably. More specific than comprehensive, the ABC School represents a small first step towards larger change.
The school is open to academics (both faculty and students), architects, design practitioners, developers, contractors and fabricators. While free, commitment is essential. It will span six weeks beginning Saturday, 19 June 2021, with a culminating think-in session on 31 July. The content will be presented and discussed in three thematic sections: Capitalism, Labor, and Collective Practice. Each theme has two components: debates stimulated by lessons from people whose work is central to the week’s theme; and salons for discussing the outcomes of design assignments pertinent to that theme. Collective discussions necessitate two to three hours of weekly participation. Assignment prompts are given every other week, requiring about an hour to complete.
Though free, space is limited, so if you’re interested, don’t hesitate – sign up now.
