Virtual Summer School
June 19–July 31, 2021
The labor advocacy organization the Architecture Lobby is launching a six-week-long virtual summer school this June: Architecture Beyond Capitalism (ABC School). The school stems from a desire within The Architecture Lobby to critically interrogate the structures and systems of power that have made change difficult within design professions and institutions. We believe that existing schools of architecture do not teach what they could or should. The ABC School is open to anyone wanting to better understand how architecture is part of larger class, race, gender, and extraction-based capitalist economies. Sessions will address inequity and inaccess to architectural education, burdens of debt on students, the precarious labor of students, faculty, and staff, and it will prepare participants for a post-developer-driven mode of practice.
The Lobby is committed to long-term structural change, including the prototyping of new curricular structures and content, developing new modes of co-producing, and sharing knowledge equitably. More specific than comprehensive, The ABC School represents a small first step toward larger change.
The virtual summer program is free and open to students, faculty, practitioners, and members of various publics in all parts of the world. It will span six weeks beginning Saturday, June 19, 2021 with a culminating think-in session on July 31. The content will be organized in three thematic sections: "Capitalism," "Labor," and "Collective Practice." Each theme has two discussion-based components: debates stimulated by provocations from people whose work is central to the week’s theme and salons for discussing the outcomes of design assignments pertinent to that theme.
Click here to learn more and to sign up. Enrollment may be limited due to technological capacity. The school is free, but commitment is essential. Collective discussions necessitate two to three hours of weekly participation. Assignments prompts are given every other week, requiring about an hour to complete.
Important dates
Saturday, April 10: Sign-up opens
Saturday, May 15: Sign-up closes
Saturday, May 22: Participants notified
Saturday, June 5: Cohort finalized
Time
All events to be held virtually from 4–6pm EST
Program
Saturday, June 19: Session 1, Capitalism
Saturday, June 26: Salon 1
Saturday, July 3: Session 2, Labor
Saturday, July 10: Salon 2
Saturday, July 17: Session 3, Collective Practice
Saturday, July 24: Salon 3
Saturday, July 31: Think-in
