Working Thesis

It is no secret that urban centers around the world find their education systems in a state of economic and political upheaval. From first-world democracies to third-world dictatorships, the triple-threat of economic hardship, political ineptitude/corruption, and material/structural building deficiencies have rendered urban public education in a state of social and political crisis.

While some cities have been able to stabilize their public education system with national subsidies or private gifts and funding, dis-invested urban centers with an already spotted history of social and economic hardship are often at the brunt end of the totem pole when cities whose very economic and political survival is at stake make triage decisions about which schools to save, which districts in which they should re-invest, and which social and public policies to enact.

As the struggle between ever-greater suburbanization and re-urbanization of cities in the United States polarizes the nation into a culture of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, many public schools have closed either due to shifts toward charter- and private-school education or in response to changing urban and urban-fringe demographics.

This thesis explores the question of what cities and societies can do to redeem failing neighborhoods and urban cores through the adaptive re-use of abandoned public schools.  By analyzing the contextual, psychological, and political factors at play, this thesis proposes how one Philadelphia-area school can address contemporary urban challenges through its re-purposing into a new community asset.

Thesis Draft 1.0

1. What happens to politically significant buildings when regimes shift and a new political entity comes into power?
2. How does our current culture (or social structure) wrestle with and decide what to do with buildings left over from a previous political generation or social zeitgeist?
3. What happens to buildings that are left beached upon changing social and economic tides?

-- A classification of types of buildings based on the catalyst for their original creation. Political, cultural, educational, economic, residential, infrastructural, institutional, etc. (Choose one type for simplicity’s sake).

-- A dichotomy of why the building has come to its state of abandonment.  Political upheaval, social acceptance lost, changing global economy, cultural ambitions and cultural capacity has changed, educational/institutional models have shifted, economic/geographic flux, natural disaster, material decay, infrastructural obsolescence, demographic shifts, martial action, etc.

-- An analysis of the qualities/qualifiers that impact the building’s capacity to adapt [carrying capacity]. Utilitas, firmitas, venustas (cc. Eduardo Rojas).

-- Degrees of intervention
re-creational (remake in old image)
co-creational (remake to match the context of a place but with the respect to the building’s original form/function/use.
neo-creational (to complement existing qualities of the building to new additional uses)
post-creational (to contrast historic building characteristics with vastly modernized material/form/use)

-- Considerations for how these interventions may impact society and lead to new conception/life of old building

-- Apply in a design. A building that embodies these characteristics and which has a socio/cultural/political charge to see how adaptation can bring about critical analysis and new use for unused buildings.

**In addition to the ‘Apply in a design’ step, also consider the following:
An exploratory analysis of the ways in which we convey a building’s use and image prior to its physical reuse/construction. What means and media do we use to impact/address (point 2) dichotomies for the building’s original abandonment. How can designers use media to modify popular mindset.

Similar to Alexander Zaera Polo’s Politics of the Envelope, a study of historical and politically charged buildings, analyzing what happens to a significant structure during political transformations or shifts in political/economic power

“In investigation into the interplay of politics and architecture with a quest toward understanding why buildings are abandoned, what keeps them in their state of abandonment, and what factors are necessary to achieve their eventual adaptation and re-use. Of special interest is the process that power swings in politics and economics bring about and how educators, students, and practitioners can be more aware of the factors at play in a design project.”