Architecture and Ideology

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DANIJELA MILOVANOVIĆ RODIĆ, Assistant Professor
Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, danstev@afrodita.rcub.bg.ac.rs
KSENIJA LALOVIĆ, Assistant Professor
Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, ksenija.lalovic@gmail.com
JELENA ŽIVKOVIĆ, Assistant Professor
Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, j_zivkovic@ptt.rs
ARCHITECTURE FOR THE OTHER 90%
SOCIAL ACTIVISM, ECONOMIC RECESION OR CLIMATE CRISIS RESPOND
Abstract |
The term "Design for (with) the Other 90%" means the search for design solutions that
addressed the most basic needs of the 90% of the world's population not traditionally served
by professional designers. In this paper we examine the motives and discuss the value systems
standing in the background of such actions.
The first group of motives fall within the spirit of social activism. In recent years, there can be
recognized raising number of designers of different backgrounds who re‐actualize the early
modernist period understanding of the role and range of the design, in which the design is
interpreted as a discipline which can address the world's most critical issues such as poverty,
social injustice, pollution or climate change. They do engage their specific knowledge
concerning the space design searching for new solutions and mechanisms for improvement of
quality or even saving lives.
The second group includes motives generated by the recent economic recession, which has
contributed to reducing the investments and consequently the need and opportunity for
standard professional engagement of architects. In this context, an increasing number of
architects who are looking for new types of engagement and sources of funding work for and
with public and private funds intended to care for vulnerable and disadvantaged, actually the
majority within those 90%.
The third group of motives arrived from environmental issues we face today. Calls on energy
and environmentally sensible design have reached critical level both in the wider public and
professional circles. The architects' knowledge, skills and competences are used in the search
for solutions that are cheap, energy efficient, environmentally sensitive and such that "other
90%" can participate in their realization.
The main objective of this paper is to discuss such architecture and its the potential to achieve
sustainable solutions of different but highly related developmental issues that “Other 90%",
the architects and the planet itself are facing with.
Key words |
Architecture, Other 90%, social activism, economic recesion, climate change