Perspectives in Metropolitan Research 5: New Urban Professions – A Journey through Practice and Theory

The Other
Engagement: A
Critique of the “Co-”
Tatjana Schneider
I have just come back from a conference (Architecture Connects
2017) that sought to explore “architectural education and research
that collaborates with people, organizations, and other disciplines
in real world contexts for their mutual benefit.” What we saw
were presentations of projects that involved people in games and
consultation events. We were shown photographs and films
showing spatial interventions that came out of the collaboration
with one or more community interest groups, had discussions on
the methodologies of engagement, and listened to people arguing
for the need to think about appropriate educational models in
the context of twenty-first-century challenges and crises. Again
and again, we heard people emphasize the need for co-production
between different actors in order to get successful projects; different
presenters mentioned the need to work with communities
rather than for them; and many others spoke about the necessity
of situated working, situated learning, and situated doing. The
underlying message of many contributions was about the need
for an architecture that recognizes the desires and wishes of its
users. Hence, many of the projects we saw focused not on the final
product but on processes that didn’t have clear briefs as a starting
point. Instead, concepts for a space developed over long(er) periods
of time through collaboration and negotiation with a whole
range of actors.
These discussions are nothing new—not even in the field of architecture
and urban design. Indeed, they have been debated intensely
since the nineteen-fifties at the very least. Think, for example,
about N. John Habraken and his seminal contribution in the
field of housing through the inclusion of users in the production
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