Can Architects Be Socially Responsible

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Out of Site Criticism of Architecture Can Architects be socially responsible? Architects say over and over again that they are extremely concerned with the issues pertaining to social and economic justice, yet Margate Crawford states that although it seems like architects care about such agenda it seems that in the past twenty years from when this article was written. The architectural profession has slowly moved away from social issues in example that she states “professional competence such as homelessness, the growing crisis in affordable and appropriate housing the loss of environmental quality, and the challenge passed by traffic-checked, increasingly unmanageable urban areas.” (page. 27) Crawford makes a valid point of reasoning in which in much part it is the architect’s job to make sure that the building works and responds to societal and environmental issues accordingly. This issue carries much argument though from one perspective the architect should be socially responsible for his actions in design and build, yet all faults should not be placed on architects. The issue should concern developers, corporations, and all other clients the architect has. In major part it is and should continue being the architect’s job to educate the client to produce a building that is responsible and addresses many of the issues Crawford argues for. Our perspective on social responsibility is altered from that of the rest of the world, maybe we need to somewhat detach ourselves from such perspectives we see know between architecture and society to produce the avant-garde in social responsibility. We should maybe follow in effect and take in to great consideration how American architects whom had just finished European educations in the late nineteenth
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