The Dallas based non-profit, bcWorkshop is a design center dedicated to providing improved and collaborative public interest design and building services to the undeserved and sometimes forgotten communities in which resources are most scarce. Acquiring 503c status since 2008, bc or building community workshop has grown to 19 staff members and 6 employees with an average age of 28 and the experience of several community based “humanitarian design” initiatives under its belt or in progress.
Surprisingly, the altruistic approach to applying high-tech architecture and low-tech interventions is not without its critics. Bruce Nussbaum, Professor of Innovation, at Parsons New School for Design, calls the work the “new imperialism.” But other such as the founder of the nonprofit firm, Profit H Design, argue that the accusation is shortsighted and that “most critics who call humanitarian design the new imperialism haven’t done the work and realized how messy, political, and complex it can be.” If you have a chance to spend anytime with Brent Brown, the founder of bcWorkshop and Benje Feehan, an architect and project manager at the firm talk about their work on Congo Street in Dallas, you might also object to the accusation.
Congo Street is small stretch of 17 homes built before 1910, on a forgotten road in South Dallas,close to Fair Park. Origionally called South Carroll Street, Congo Street was renamed in the 1930’s to warning to Fair goers as to what they would encounter if they wandered too far from the Fair grounds and into the mostly black neighborhoods of and around Congo Street. The name stuck, and the fear of the area was replaced by apathy.
Fast forward to the Spring of 08 and enter Brent Brown and his dedicated crew from bcWorkshop, and Congo Street was suddenly the topic of much discussion and interest. What set this intervention apart from the beginning the was the commitment to understanding the stakeholders. The process was constructed as an educational opportunity for the citizens and homeowners of Congo Street to have impute.
Brent believes that community engagement is typically facilitated in two ways, it can be authentic, without any idea of what can happen, or manipulated in the way you wan the outcome to happen. The process of engagement with the Congo Street project was authentic, and the first step was to bring together a focus group of people outside the experts, and ask the citizens of the community for help. The process took some time and commitment. The community needed to trust the staff of bcWorkshop and believe that their intentions were genuine and not self serving. Once the community understood that this was a collaborative effort and their voice and needs would be represented in the design, the path to revitalization was underway with the design and construction of a “holding house.” Residents would use this initial home to live in while their home was being rehabilitated. Ultimately 6 homes on the 3000 square foot would be rebuilt and occupied by long time residents of Congo Street.
Brent Brown and Congo Street
The Congo Street Project is only one of several such projects in progress at bcWorkshop. The underlying theme to all of the initiatives lies in the evolution of the equity piece and Brent believes that this evolution is an extension of the application of civil rights. In design this application goes by the name of “community design, humanitarian design, or public interest design.” A new acronym that has been batted around in these circles to represent this movement is SEED or social economic and environmental design.
What ever you call it, the fundamental aspect of the process, and of sustainability is ethics, and the general theme of the staff at bcWorkshop is to represent "the people." The goal of bcWorkshop is to take themselves out of the equation and help give a voice to those who many times are not fairly represented. I believe this is a very worthy and needed movement and I am inspired by the passionate of people like Brent and Benje that have focused their talents and energy towards helping represent those who would not otherwise have this opportunity to participate in the process of change and equality usually afforded only to those with higher means.
bcWorkshop: http://bcworkshop.org/
Making the Ideal More Real: http://www.architectmagazine.com/architects/making-the-ideal-more-real.aspx
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