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Editors’ note
We had the idea for EDGEcondition when talking about the Architecture Journal Women in Architecture awards (WiA). We both consider ourselves to be ‘women in architecture’ but the categories on a surface reading excluded us, and the survey that ran alongside the awards was geared to those in practice. We consider ourselves to be ‘women in architecture’ but we are not ‘architects’ in the strictest term; Gem is qualified to RIBA Part II but for a variety of reasons and circumstances chose not to pursue the protected title; Cara came into the sector from an arts background. Neither of us work in or run an easily recognisable or conventional architecture practice; does that mean we can’t call ourselves ‘women in architecture’?
Of course not. But the question-posing made us think of all those work in architecture and the wider sectors around it, those like us that have a portfolio of experience that play with the role and function of architecture and gain our job satisfaction this way. We are part of that current wave of built environment professionals that work on our own and as part of myriad teams; teams that change with every project and projects too that may challenge a prescriptive definition of architecture. What would the sector look like without those who work on the periphery of the architecture of ‘building buildings’? Those of us that are using conventional architectural knowledge in different and subverting ways, or that are bringing in knowledge from other sectors?
The AJ WiA awards are essential for the sector, for reasons of equality that have been well-reported in the media, and it was wonderful to see the variety of WiA practitioners celebrated by the awards; and it gave us the stepping point into launching EDGEcondition.
EDGEcondition was thus begun to examine the condition of those that work in the wider built environment sector, and those in architecture that have a horizontal model of working rather than a vertical career path, operating from a role that can lead and exercise power across and between their remits, be hands on with projects, see the tangible results of their work beyond the material object. EDGEcondition is a continuation of our conversation in publication form, talking with others who work on the fringes of architecture; who have used their architectural training in unconventional ways; who work in the professions that encircle architecture. You don’t have to be called, or call yourself, an architect to have import or impact in the built environment.
An industry as diverse as ours needs to be aware of its internal make up to fully coordinate and showcase its capabilities. For architecture to be socially and politically relevant to urban change, it needs to recognise the many voices and skills needed to produce place, the community, the artists, the policy-makers, the planners, the designers, the teachers, the placemakers, the conservators, the curators… This moves architecture beyond a binary professional/non-professional demarcation of knowledge to acknowledging the multiple stakeholders and processes necessarily involved in urban design, moving architecture further away from a top-down versus bottom-up approach to instead view the terrain as one of multiple stakeholders in collaborative participation.
The foundations of this approach lie in a discourse-building process to frame issues and construct meanings collectively, a process itself that engenders new and shared understandings of the multitude forms of practice we see now that come under an architecture and built environment banner. EDGEcondition is part of this discourse.
As an introductory volume this first issue, the Seams, talks to those that join architecture to a wider world; the next issue will focus on art and architecture, and we have subsequent issues on, amongst others, placemaking, teaching and education, design and planning and policy.
Gem Barton, Cara Courage
We had the idea for EDGEcondition when talking about the Architecture Journal Women in Architecture awards (WiA). We both consider ourselves to be ‘women in architecture’ but the categories on a surface reading excluded us, and the survey that ran alongside the awards was geared to those in practice. We consider ourselves to be ‘women in architecture’ but we are not ‘architects’ in the strictest term; Gem is qualified to RIBA Part II but for a variety of reasons and circumstances chose not to pursue the protected title; Cara came into the sector from an arts background. Neither of us work in or run an easily recognisable or conventional architecture practice; does that mean we can’t call ourselves ‘women in architecture’?
Of course not. But the question-posing made us think of all those work in architecture and the wider sectors around it, those like us that have a portfolio of experience that play with the role and function of architecture and gain our job satisfaction this way. We are part of that current wave of built environment professionals that work on our own and as part of myriad teams; teams that change with every project and projects too that may challenge a prescriptive definition of architecture. What would the sector look like without those who work on the periphery of the architecture of ‘building buildings’? Those of us that are using conventional architectural knowledge in different and subverting ways, or that are bringing in knowledge from other sectors?
The AJ WiA awards are essential for the sector, for reasons of equality that have been well-reported in the media, and it was wonderful to see the variety of WiA practitioners celebrated by the awards; and it gave us the stepping point into launching EDGEcondition.
EDGEcondition was thus begun to examine the condition of those that work in the wider built environment sector, and those in architecture that have a horizontal model of working rather than a vertical career path, operating from a role that can lead and exercise power across and between their remits, be hands on with projects, see the tangible results of their work beyond the material object. EDGEcondition is a continuation of our conversation in publication form, talking with others who work on the fringes of architecture; who have used their architectural training in unconventional ways; who work in the professions that encircle architecture. You don’t have to be called, or call yourself, an architect to have import or impact in the built environment.
An industry as diverse as ours needs to be aware of its internal make up to fully coordinate and showcase its capabilities. For architecture to be socially and politically relevant to urban change, it needs to recognise the many voices and skills needed to produce place, the community, the artists, the policy-makers, the planners, the designers, the teachers, the placemakers, the conservators, the curators… This moves architecture beyond a binary professional/non-professional demarcation of knowledge to acknowledging the multiple stakeholders and processes necessarily involved in urban design, moving architecture further away from a top-down versus bottom-up approach to instead view the terrain as one of multiple stakeholders in collaborative participation.
The foundations of this approach lie in a discourse-building process to frame issues and construct meanings collectively, a process itself that engenders new and shared understandings of the multitude forms of practice we see now that come under an architecture and built environment banner. EDGEcondition is part of this discourse.
As an introductory volume this first issue, the Seams, talks to those that join architecture to a wider world; the next issue will focus on art and architecture, and we have subsequent issues on, amongst others, placemaking, teaching and education, design and planning and policy.
Gem Barton, Cara Courage