Not Allowed: Practicing Process

Not Allowed: Practicing Process is a response to my dissatisfaction with the status quo of architectural pedagogy as I have experienced it. By shifting attention away from the architectural product and onto the process, I redefine the thesis project's success through encounters of learning, struggle, and uncomfortable ambiguity. The project explores ideas of co-authorship, building practice, and embedding meaning in architectural pedagogy and work. It has challenged concepts such as the urgency of production, the erasure of identity in pedagogy and practice, and the systemic harm architecture perpetuates on both the personal and on the global scale. To carry out the thesis's goals, I armed myself with tools like self-reflection, expectation of change, intentional conversation, and curiosity. The work allowed for topic change, dramatic restructuring, and lapses in rigor. It found value in opening multiple paths and diverging from linearity, although it accepts that the effort expended has been cumulative. Instead of a thesis review, the project culminated in a thesis reflection where I asked attendees to partake in a small group discussion and share their thoughts on provided prompts. The results of the process look like an intentionally organized collection of thoughts and conducted discussions that raise more questions than they answer. I have identified guiding questions on this thesis journey, such as: What ways of thinking are privileged in architecture? What modes of production are validated? What do I limit myself to when I am bound by architecture's definition of rigor? How much energy should I spend gaining validation? What are the criteria for failure? What if the ways I derive value in my work devalue my project in the normative discipline? Does that matter? If we make better work when we are full and present, what do we need to be full and present? If the social contracts we hold outside of architecture education spaces are constantly violated, what new social contracts must we build? How can we preserve them? If the pedagogy has not been serving me as I need it to, how have I been working to develop infrastructure for myself? How can I continue to do so moving forward?

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Ugorji, Amanda

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Shieh, Rosalyne

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
• Copyright retained by author(s)

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/154365

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/154365