Author(s): Scott Aker
Over the past decade, Philadelphia has faced significant urban challenges, highlighted by 12 demolition collapses from 2013 to 2023. This paper explores how an introductory design studio engages with these urban traumas, inviting students from diverse academic backgrounds—including business, medicine, and design—to tackle their first design project. The studio fosters critical thinking and interdisciplinary dialogue by focusing on demolition, resulting in innovative memorial typologies that integrate product, landscape, and architec¬tural interventions. Situated in Philadelphia’s historic North Mantua neighbor¬hood, the studio’s projects for Victims of Demolition address complex site selection challenges, offering choices among urban infill, edge, and void conditions. These settings allow students to explore different urban dynamics and apply their designs contextually. Collaborations with local organizations like ‘Build As You Live Here’ significantly shape the students’ approach, enhancing their understanding of the interplay between architectural design and urban context. The studio uses collaborative social justice research and photo narratives to help students articulate their design concepts and grasp the thematic foundations of their projects. This method encourages students to develop visual narratives that guide their design process, fostering a rich dialogue on urban commemoration. This paper categorizes the students’ projects into five thematic memorial types: fragments, acti¬vated edges, retreat spaces, amplification, and extraction. Each theme challenges traditional notions of memorials and incorporates social justice elements, emphasizing the impor¬tance of community engagement and sustainable practices. By emphasizing the pressing social concerns related to victims of demolition, the studio highlights the essential role of educational initiatives for social justice studios. This paper illustrates how the end of a building can mark a new begin-ning and serve as a transformative design-thinking process for beginning designers in foundational studios.
Volume Editors
ISBN
978-1-944214-49-4