Anarchitecture
Joshua Steele
If we had to design your neighborhood without architects, city planners, or designers – how would we go about it?
Anarchitecture showcases the innovations of communities who had to do their own environmental design when no designers were willing or able to do so. This field of design, coined “anarchitecture,” subverts the usual hierarchy of “client-designer-consumer” and positions the people who live in a community as the designers of that community. This exhibit showcases unique “anarchist” design strategies across the world – from communes to castles and sheds to skyscrapers. Anarchitecture invites usto experiment with these ideas in a collaborative neighborhood model.
Experiential Communication Design (also known as Environmental Graphic Design) is the way in which designers work with builders, architects, city planners, etc. to create systems for human-built spaces. This includes things like signage, pathways, exhibits, decoration, interactive structures, and more. A designer is rarely working only for their client – rather they are working for their client’s clients. But who knows our needs better than us?
Anarchitecture questions the mythology of the architect, the designer, the planner – examining what people are capable of when allowed to identify their own needs and conduct their own design experiments. Not every idea is a winner in the world of DIY, but sometimes firsthand experience leads to the most effective design solutions.
Anarchitecture is an invitation to practice design with our own sense of reasoning, and, if you choose, learn from the strategies of other “citizen designers.” By engaging with these experiments in experiential communication design, we can discover how to collaborate across the boundaries of need, knowledge, and expertise.
