scholarly journals Social Innovation in the Undergraduate Architecture Studio

Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 26
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Krstikj

Social innovation has been gaining attention as an alternative method for defining socially constructed problems and their solutions in times of failure of more conventional methods. This study focused on the potential of undergraduate architecture students for social innovation in public space production. A novel collaborative educational method was proposed based on a conceptual framework of social extrapreneurs’ platforms of exploration, experimentation and execution, and problem-based learning. The method was designed for 90 h synchronous and 90 h asynchronous work, in a remote teaching mode. The benefit of the method was foreseen in improving the social processes of public space production, especially in areas with pronounced discrimination. Social innovation in planning is crucial for the capacity of imagining better futures in the context of a system’s evolutionary resilience and has the potential for democratization of public place design. Preliminary results show that the proposed method enables critical thinking, sets the base of action on social justice, and turns students into active agents of social change; thus, it provides an important contribution to the necessary, but still uncharted, paradigm shift in architectural education from an object- to people-driven design.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Aune ◽  
◽  
Rafael Soares Gonçalves ◽  

ABSTRACT In a world with enough natural and human resources to feed, dress and house the entire population in a nondestructive way, it is not logical to see most people living in poverty, consuming in unsustainable proportions and destroying the basic systems that support life. Understanding the economy only through the lenses of the capitalism money has transformed society and shaped cities. How long will the multiplication of profits be the main objective? How far do we move away from our roots to meet an unsustainable economic model? Are we happy in this system? And, after all, are there alternatives? The aim of this research is to point out possibilities for a healthy economy and, consequently, a better quality of life. From a wide review of the literature, this article addresses the social and economic transformations resulting from the popularisation of the Internet - emphasising the paradigm shifts that are transforming the logic of capitalism's unsustainable growth (scarcity vs. abundance; competition vs. collaboration, etc.). The improvement of the connection between people, projects and ideas drives much-needed social innovation, especially in times of crisis. In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and the challenges related to climate change, this article explores three examples of so-called "new economies": Creative, Collaborative and Circular. It was observed that economies based on the new paradigms and aligned with the post-industrial era are more fluid and capable of rescuing the sense of community, of regenerating ecosystems, of reconnecting individuals with their purposes and of the redesigning of cities, generating vibrant and resilient local economies. KEYWORDS: Paradigm Shift; Transition; Regeneration; Social innovation; Resilience, Creative Economy; Collaborative Economy; Circular Economy


2018 ◽  
pp. 52-83
Author(s):  
Paulina Cornejo Moreno Valle

The paper seeks to contribute to the knowledge and research on how universities can use their resources to build bridges through design and social innovation with their surrounding communities. It is based on the case of the Social Design HUB of CENTRO University in Mexico City and its urban garden project CULTIVA, a joint initiative, based on transversal collaboration and the creation of shared value. The paper informs on the development of CULTIVA as an area for learning and social interaction in a neighborhood with a substantial decline in public space and community life, and shares findings related to participants pro-files, their perceptions and behavior about community life, and the effects of projects and collaborations based on mutual exchange. This work includes an analysis of the scope of the initiative based on The Social Design Pathways Tool.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-42
Author(s):  
György Kocziszky ◽  
Dóra Szendi

Abstract The international literature is paying significant and increasing attention to the analysis of the regions’ innovation potential, and its active contribution to economic growth and competitiveness. Beside the classical, technical innovation, also the social innovation is getting even more emphasis. It can solve as alternative basically in the case of the peripheral territories. The convergence of peripheries is a stressed priority in the European Union. The territorial disparities are resulting in significant social and political problems also in the case of the Visegrad countries’ regions. The authors in their research represent a possible method for the measurement of regional (NUTS-2) level social innovation potential on the example of the Visegrad countries, and they also analyse the causes and consequences of disparities. The applied complex social innovation index can be calculated as a result of three pillars (economic, social, culture and attitude), and several components. As a result of the created patterns can be concluded that compared to the economic indicators, the disadvantage of the peripheries is not so significant in the case of the social innovation index, because of the complex character of the index. In the second part of the research, the authors analyse and evaluate also the methods, which can be adequate for increasing the social innovation potential.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 306
Author(s):  
Silvana Panza

The focus of this study concerns a deep analysis on the innovative educational method utilized by Jane Addams (1860-1935) at Hull House. She was a philosopher, but first of all we can consider this woman as a sociologist, because of her careful survey on society, Addams’s activities also implied a new educational project based on the social care of poor workers and their families. She chose for her extraordinary experience one of the most slummy suburbs in Chicago, where with her friend Ellen Gates Starr founded in 1889 this settlement. The main intention of the sociologist was to give immigrants lots of opportunities to understand Chicago’s social and political context. It was important to create a place where immigrant families could socialize, learning more about their rights and possibilities. For this reason Addams suggested that it needed to start from education, taking a particular care of children who lived in that area. It was necessary to promote a reform on the different culture learning to support immigrants in their integration, people who came there hoping to find a job into factories. In 1889 when the settlement was founded, there were about four hundred social houses around the States. Addams’ s important social and political idea was to develop a democratic society, where each person could recognize himself/herself as a part of it, avoiding marginalization and segregation. The sociologist was a central figure at Hull House for about twenty years.


Author(s):  
Samuel Llano

This chapter provides an account of how organilleros elicited public anger because their activity did not fit into any of the social aid categories that had been in place since the late eighteenth century. Social aid in Spain relied on a clear-cut distinction between deserving and undeserving poor in order to rationalize the distribution of limited resources and reduce mendicancy on the streets. Organilleros could not, strictly speaking, be considered idle, since they played music, but their activity required no specific skills and was regarded with suspicion as a surrogate form of begging. The in-betweenness of the organillero caused further anger as it challenged attempts to establish a neat distinction between public and private spaces. On one hand, organillo music penetrated the domestic space, which conduct manuals of the nineteenth century configured as female; on the other, it brought women into the public space, which those manuals configured as male.


Author(s):  
Marilyn Fernandez

Does the burgeoning Indian Information Technology (IT) sector represent a deviation from the historical arc of caste inequality or has it become yet another site of discrimination? Those who claim that the sector is caste-free believe that IT is an equal opportunity employer, and that the small Dalit footprint is due to the want of merit. But they fail to consider how caste inequality sneaks in by being layered on socially constructed ‘pure merit’, which favours upper castes and other privileged segments, but handicaps Dalits and other disadvantaged groups. In this book, Fernandez describes how the practice of pure and holistic merit are deeply embedded in the social, cultural, and economic privileges of the dominant castes and classes, and how caste filtering has led to the reproduction of caste hierarchies and consequently the small Dalit footprint in Indian IT.


Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenni Rytilä

AbstractThe core idea of social constructivism in mathematics is that mathematical entities are social constructs that exist in virtue of social practices, similar to more familiar social entities like institutions and money. Julian C. Cole has presented an institutional version of social constructivism about mathematics based on John Searle’s theory of the construction of the social reality. In this paper, I consider what merits social constructivism has and examine how well Cole’s institutional account meets the challenge of accounting for the characteristic features of mathematics, especially objectivity and applicability. I propose that in general social constructivism shows promise as an ontology of mathematics, because the view can agree with mathematical practice and it offers a way of understanding how mathematical entities can be real without conflicting with a scientific picture of reality. However, I argue that Cole’s specific theory does not provide an adequate social constructivist account of mathematics. His institutional account fails to sufficiently explain the objectivity and applicability of mathematics, because the explanations are weakened and limited by the three-level theoretical model underlying Cole’s account of the construction of mathematical reality and by the use of the Searlean institutional framework. The shortcomings of Cole’s theory give reason to suspect that the Searlean framework is not an optimal way to defend the view that mathematical reality is socially constructed.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document