Preface to Architecture, Participation and Society

The key term in the title of this book, Architecture, Participation and Society, is society. It is important because it reminds us that architecture as product and process is always embedded in social dynamics. This may appear such an obvious statement that it really should not need repeating, but the evidence presented in this book suggests that architects, or more precisely architectural culture, have tended to avoid engagement with those dynamics. The reasons for this are multiple, but centre on the way that the complexity and strength of societal forces are seen to upset the purity of architectural values, conceived as they are on the false hopes of redemption through material and aesthetic matter alone. Too often, the result is the suppression of the voices of others in the production of architecture. Of course all architects do engage with others in the course of projects, most obviously with clients but also inevitably with users and the public as these two constituencies take on and then take over what the architect has left behind.

The question this book asks is what could and should the nature of that engagement be, and how might it differ for the three different groups? Participation, as a nuanced mode of engagement, has in the past been treated as a form of intrusion into the idealised values of architectural culture, something that brings unwanted noise to an already complex process. Typically, it is at best tolerated, at worst played down as much as is allowed. However, such tokenism in participation is increasingly unacceptable. What right does any profession have to determine the course of its own operation, and on what basis can the voice of the user possibly be denied? Regulatory frameworks in many countries now demand that professionals at least listen to, and preferably take on board, the views of others. Even if one might question the political expediency of these regulations and despair of their bureaucratisation, they do provide the opportunity to reconsider the operation of participation in architecture. In particular, if participation is to become the norm rather than the exception, then we should be moving away from the polarisation that can be seen in the history of participation. Many of the main protagonists have started from a position in clear opposition to mainstream values and processes. The problem then becomes that a dialectic is set up, and the protagonists are moved to the margins, allowing the strength of the centre to evolve unchallenged. The challenge now is to understand participation not as an either/or to architecture but as a both/and. As the either to architecture, participation has too often been treated as a worthy other, but not one that can deliver the core architectural values. Put simply, the classic participatory schemes mentioned in the book not only would never win architectural beauty contests but positively resist the siren calls of the traditional norms of beauty and tectonic delight.

The implication is that one can either have participation or Architecture (with a capital A) but not both. However, this implication only holds true if one accepts that the norms of Architecture are fixed. The real virtue of participation is that it brings another set of values to the table, and in this supplements the limited Vitruvian diet. Non-architects have different priorities and needs, and these have to be accepted as just as valid as the architectural ones. The issue therefore becomes not to dismiss normative architectural knowledge, and the values on which it is based, out of hand, but to see them as part of a much broader, socially-oriented, mix: both participation and architecture. Only then can participatory practice be moved from an oppositional, and potentially marginalised, position to something that can serve to revitalise the centre of the architectural profession. Never has the need for this reformulation been more necessary than in the year of the publication of this book. Architecture played a key role in fuelling the binge of development in the early 2000s. In the rush to build, architecture was reduced to just one commodity among many, the stars delivering excesses of form and technique to sate the appetites of the high-end elite, and the rest left to meet the immediate demands of the debt-ridden marketplace. Now that the limitless trading of commodities has been staunched, and now that the very values on which that trade was founded are being called into question, architecture as a profession is left stranded. It needs to move fast to find another role. Surely the clue lies in the rediscovery of its connection with society (it is hardly as if it ever really went away), and surely the revitalisation of participatory practice as set out in the following pages is one way of achieving this?