Architectural design education and practices are not the common professions enforced in conversation within African American communities. In fact, less than 2% of architects are African American. For better access and inclusive design education, there must be better outreach to the younger audience. In order to develop the built environment with a diversity of views, culture and experiences, the exposure and knowledge of architectural design must be better implemented within the education of African American youth to engage and create opportunities for pursuing a career in architecture and design.
Hi! I’m Gloria and that was the statement for my thesis interior design project that I just completed in my final year at Boston Architectural College. Last Spring, I was researching the underrepresentation of women in corporate America, then began to focus on the lack of African American women in architecture. At this point, I was deeply interested in finding a solution as well as educating the audience.
First, let’s touch on the lack of women in high positions. Companies try to be committed to gender diversity in the workplace, but the commitment has not yet been translated into meaningful progress. According to a study done by Lonnae O’Neal in “The Undefeated”, the percentage of women at every level in corporate America has hardly changed, even despite earning more college degrees than men for thirty years and counting. Yet, there still are not an equal amount of women being hired into high positions as men. Women of color are the most underrepresented group of all, lagging behind white men, men of color, and white women. Women of color are not only significantly underrepresented, they are far less likely than others to be promoted to manager, more likely to face everyday discrimination and less likely to receive support from their managers. Corporations should have black women in higher positions to not only keep the diversity but to have all perspectives represented in the workplace and to be a representative to young black children. Equality is a demand that women have in the workplace, which focuses on sameness being the end goal. Though equity focuses on all people, regardless of their racial or ethnic grouping, having fair access to the same opportunities others have is necessary to succeed.
Now, moving onto the lack of women and women of color in architecture. Architecture, like most, is a field that is predominantly practiced by white men, in fact, 72 percent of architects are Caucasians. While 1.6 percent are African American and to narrow it down, .3 percent are black women, 400 as of 2018 to be exact. Recruiting African Americans into architecture has a certain significance that fills the void of another perspective of design. Black people see the city differently, they see the culture, preservation, and the politics of how things get built. Melvin Mitchell once wrote, “The crucial responsibility of a black architect to Black America is to envision and conceptualize productive new environments, create value, and deliberately reflect African-American culture where none of those things currently exists.” (“African American Architecture Criticism.” HuffPost. October 25, 2017. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/african-american-architecture-criticism_b_5866a04ae4b04d7df167d45e) The significance of a Black architect is to have more designers of color improve the space that they inhabit. This is when I started to think more about how I could produce a project that focused on recruiting more African Americans into architecture and design.
After more research and more amazing help from my advisor, I came to the conclusion that targeting younger people is the best way to gain numbers to a certain profession! I chose to focus on studying the city of Boston and its schools. I learned that absolutely none of the high schools in Boston have courses that touch upon architecture, but mostly on STEM subjects. Considering Boston is a city with 100s of architecture and design firms and several programs within the universities; sadly, it wasn’t a subject that was being taught in the high schools across the city. This was my opportunity to create something that I’ve never heard being done in any thesis design project ever! The idea of creating a specialized high school that offers architecture and design programs, specifically located in a predominantly African American neighborhood in Boston. Going more in depth into my research, I chose to use the site of a school in Mattapan called Brooke Charter School. My project took off once I discovered this school because it was absolutely perfect! Brooke Charter is a school that focuses on the education of their Black and Latinx students and believe that diversity is very important.
My design approach was the next most important part of the project. I had to think about how I can create this space that not only has these design programs but also represents the students through the design. Instead of designing an entire school because it was way out of the scope of the deliverable, I chose to create an architecture and design wing and renovate one floor of the building. I started by figuring out what the program would be like on this floor, which included drawing up diagrams and writing out my program list.
I also researched different configurations for classrooms that weren’t so traditional and created diagrams of the different types of rooms.
Then I took my bubble diagrams and put them into the plan with the square footage that I came up with and “voila!“
I also looked at precedent images of other schools and took notes on how I could use these as inspiration for my project.
A big part of the design in my entire project was the significant use of color and how I presented it throughout. I had this concept idea to use all these different colors in the rainbow and beyond to represent the different colors of students who would be inhabiting the space. It’s a small and simple concept that I believe really tied everything together.I wanted to design not only a school, but also a safe space for the students of color, to show that they are important.
Working on this project was very exciting and so important to me because it made me realize how important diversity is in all aspects of life, especially within my profession. I wish to also continue being a designer that improves the spaces that are inhabited by people that look like me and influence young black children to grow up and try to do the same. Below are my presentation boards that show a bit of my research as well as my concept and final renderings of the project, enjoy!
– Gloria
