ARCH 371: Architectural Design and Urbanism
Third-Year Undergraduate Studio
Sara Bartumeus Ferre, Fall 2021
From Instagrammable spaces to NFT architecture, media consumption and image-making have caused a fundamental shift in our archival understanding of memory and place. Spaces that were once remembered through people’s senses are now also tracked, recorded, and synthesized. This project aims to design a community center in Albany Park by recognizing the implications of these practices and the images of participation that are fabricated as a result. Through both quantitative and qualitative modes of analysis, this community center will not only be designed to acknowledge the community’s own digital archive but to also adapt to our ever-changing understanding of gathering and collective action. Everything from the structure’s programming to its dynamic mass timber construction will be dictated solely by the community’s own conditions of assemblage. Although this is not a replacement for community participation, the digital traces of humanity provide future designers with the foundations to design for a more participatory world driven by social autonomy and cultural sovereignty.
