Discussion with Rae Perez '19: Architectural Autonomy Explored
In the heart of Chicago, a small area houses a significant number of schools, a legacy of segregation and red-lining practices. This concentration of educational institutions is the focus of Rae Perez's architecture thesis.
Rae Perez, a researcher with a passion for education, chose to examine the closure of 50 public schools in black neighbourhoods in Chicago. She wanted to delve into a contemporary issue in education, exploring its impact on the city's racial and political landscape.
Perez's research methodology is interdisciplinary, drawing from anthropology, sociology, and other disciplines. Her approach attributes agency to the tectonic features of a space, meaning the way something is built and designed affects its impact on the inside and outside.
Perez aims to understand how individual buildings reflect political ideologies and think about the meaning behind the spaces, not just the buildings' floor plans. She is tentatively interested in exploring the size and locations of these schools to understand them as spaces.
Alec Getraer, the Natural Sciences Correspondent, discusses Perez's architecture research and its interdisciplinary nature. Getraer highlights how this research could broaden understanding of a discipline, help in choosing a concentration, and inspire new research directions.
The closure of these schools, Perez argues, erases a significant portion of African American culture and legacy. The research methods used in architecture can be applied to many other research areas, potentially providing unique insights into a scholarly issue.
Examples of interdisciplinary research projects in architecture include building performance simulation for architectural education, heat stress analysis in social housing districts, and people-first approaches to retrofit. These projects often integrate technology, environmental science, social sciences, and human-centric design approaches.
Beyond architecture, interdisciplinary projects can span various disciplines, such as health sciences, computational biology, and engineering. For instance, health and well-being in recreation, sport, and tourism combines public health, psychology, policy studies, and community development to improve health outcomes through leisure activities.
Perez's thesis, while not yet examined through the lens of architecture and urbanism, offers a unique perspective on the intersection of education, policy, and urban dynamics in Chicago. As her research progresses, it promises to challenge the boundaries of architecture by delving into social sciences, urbanism, racial, and political dynamics of a city.
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