Portals (Pedagogy, Practice, and Architecture's Future Imaginary (RISD 2020))

Portals: Pedagogy, Practice, and Architecture’s Future Imaginary considers the COVID-19 pandemic and the remote pedagogy it occasioned globally in schools of architecture, as a critical threshold to future architectural pedagogy, practice, and spatial imaginaries. Given that the conceit of a “return to normal” is neither desirable nor possible, this book speculates upon possible futures for the discipline of architecture, through the lens of the Thesis and Directed Research projects of the RISD Architecture class of 2020.

This book documents an interregnum, a pause, a moment of self-reflection in which architects, imperiled by the COVID-19 pandemic and all of the forms of inequity that this global crisis surfaced, confronted remote architectural pedagogy and practice as a critical threshold for the future imaginary of the discipline. The renowned group of architects, educators, theorists, critics, and curators assembled in this volume provide critical insights into the future of architectural pedagogy, utilizing the thesis and design research projects of the RISD Architecture class of 2020 as exemplars of the transformations currently taking place in the field. This volume considers the forms that architectural activism and advocacy take in a moment when architects are critically reexamining the conventions of their practice and the question of which constituencies they serve.

With Contributions by RISD B.Arch & M.Arch students with Iñaki Alday, Daniel A. Barber, Hansy Better Barraza, Sean Canty, Kevin Crouse, Peggy Deamer, David Gersten, Mario Gooden, Timothy Hyde, Daniel Ibañez, Kent Kleinman, Amy Catania Kulper, Carl Lostritto, Ryan McCaffrey, Ana Miljački, Kiel Moe, Nicholas de Monchaux, Ijlal Muzaffar, Ben Pell, Rachely Rotem, Jacqueline Shaw, Lola Sheppard, Georgeen Theodore, Mason White, Dr. Mabel O. Wilson, Jason Young