The School of Architecture, founded by Frank Lloyd Wright as the Taliesin Fellowship in 1932, is undergoing significant transformations. Two years after separating from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, TSOA landed at Arcosanti, an experimental desert community in Arizona owned and operated by The Cosanti Foundation. In line with the school’s values, the program at Arcosanti seeks to provide students with a contemporary design education based on immersive, experimental, and experiential learning. The curriculum offers 2 and 3+ year NAAB-accredited Master of Architecture degrees and a 1.5-year Master of Science in Design-Build.
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The School of Architecture Develops Design-Build Learning Program at Arcosanti in Arizona, USA
Hello Wood Team on How to Create a Strong Community in a Week
Hello Wood, as you may already know, is an annual festival, which gathers hundreds of people in a Hungarian village for a week. Divided into groups, the architects and students carefully selected by the team of organizers, build installations made of wood with their bare hands. The outcome is amazing — dozens of beautiful structures rise up there each year adding more and more originality to the site.
The words cannot express the vibe you get at the Hello Wood Project Village — all the "beautiful people", as they call each other, are one big family. There is no competition, the teams help each other to make sure all projects are completed before the deadline, when they all march to the neighboring village and celebrate the week spent together.
But what is the idea behind this festival? What is the secret key to building a strong community of professionals and students in such a short period of time? Watch our interview with Hello Wood team to learn how they answer these questions.
How Could Modern Self-Build Communities Challenge the Role of the Architect?
“Self-build”: no mention of an architect, or anyone else for that matter. Maybe it’s a prehistoric urge that makes this idea so enticing; our earliest ancestors constructed their primitive huts to suit their unique needs and reflect their status or style. “Self-build” promises to physically re-connect people to the homes they live in.
However, the romantic notion of "self-build" housing is rarely compatible with the modern reality we live in. Building has become increasingly clouded by the difficulty of procuring land, excessive governmental red-tape, and an increase in building complexity. While self-build remains the purest form of this dream, there are now a series of nuanced processes that can help us achieve similar results. As a new generation of communities that encourage this dream emerges, we must look at the role the architect plays within them.