Invitation: The Architecture of Equity
Jun 19, 2020
For the past 25 years, Allied Works has been engaged in the creation of cultural buildings for communities around the world. We spend a great deal of time investigating the particular voice of each project: identifying needs and opportunities, searching for what the spaces can offer, what invitation the building extends. In the most basic terms, we ask ourselves, our clients and collaborators: who benefits, and what does the work truly serve?
We have been fortunate to design museums, schools, spaces of performance and gathering—buildings whose fundamental purpose is to cultivate and encourage open conversations of new ideas, new ways to see, and new forms of interaction. Each experience has offered lessons and insights in the creation of a more resonant and relevant architecture. This is the mission that drives us.
In response to the serial shocks of the global pandemic and the recent waves of outrage over systemic racism and injustice, we are challenged to acknowledge the inherent bias within our profession, and to be even more critical of our process and the purpose of our work. To ensure that we are doing everything we can to invite the broadest possible public into conversations about essential needs, intended outcomes and desired experiences.
As we move forward, we need to do more to create new avenues for honest dialogue and collective effort both within and beyond our practice. We must deepen engagement with local community partners, educators, institutional leadership and benefactors—and seek out those who have been too often left out of the conversation—to focus the voice and find the proper ‘fit’ between form, space, place and purpose.
There is no such thing as neutral architecture—to design and build is to take a position. We see our work as an instrument or amplifier of culture, our buildings as open vessels to be interpreted and extended through broad participation and engagement. The inspiration we seek to create, the platform we establish, should invite both dialogue and critique. It cannot be silent, it must reverberate with a chorus of voices and ideas, calling to all to enter.
For the past 25 years, Allied Works has been engaged in the creation of cultural buildings for communities around the world. We spend a great deal of time investigating the particular voice of each project: identifying needs and opportunities, searching for what the spaces can offer, what invitation the building extends. In the most basic terms, we ask ourselves, our clients and collaborators: who benefits, and what does the work truly serve?
We have been fortunate to design museums, schools, spaces of performance and gathering—buildings whose fundamental purpose is to cultivate and encourage open conversations of new ideas, new ways to see, and new forms of interaction. Each experience has offered lessons and insights in the creation of a more resonant and relevant architecture. This is the mission that drives us.
In response to the serial shocks of the global pandemic and the recent waves of outrage over systemic racism and injustice, we are challenged to acknowledge the inherent bias within our profession, and to be even more critical of our process and the purpose of our work. To ensure that we are doing everything we can to invite the broadest possible public into conversations about essential needs, intended outcomes and desired experiences.
As we move forward, we need to do more to create new avenues for honest dialogue and collective effort both within and beyond our practice. We must deepen engagement with local community partners, educators, institutional leadership and benefactors—and seek out those who have been too often left out of the conversation—to focus the voice and find the proper ‘fit’ between form, space, place and purpose.
There is no such thing as neutral architecture—to design and build is to take a position. We see our work as an instrument or amplifier of culture, our buildings as open vessels to be interpreted and extended through broad participation and engagement. The inspiration we seek to create, the platform we establish, should invite both dialogue and critique. It cannot be silent, it must reverberate with a chorus of voices and ideas, calling to all to enter.