Abstract:
Good design has the potential to benefit more people than it currently does. Design can play a direct role in addressing critical issues that we face. The process of creating the built environment can allow communities and individuals to improve and celebrate their lives. It can help solve their struggles by reshaping their existence. But currently the opportunity to create a built environment is reversed only for the very few, the elite, the highest income bracket served to excess by market force. Designers have let these market forces alone determine whom we serve, what issues we address, and the shape of all our design professions. How can we expand the practice of design to provide for the rest, the great number currently underserved, and to play an active role in responding to the social challenges we face in the world? By expanding the population we serve and the services we offer, designers can play a significant role in addressing the most critical issues we face in the world today, such as the youth and domestic abuse dilemma. We need a career path, and possibly even a profession, of public-interest architecture, parallel to public health and public defense, that has its own education requirements, financial support, and client base.
