Image: people adding a quote by Octavia Butler to a project fence in Weeksville. The full quote is “Paradise is one’s own place, one’s own people, one’s own world.” Image by Edward Marshall.
Everardo and Sara were honored to speak about their work. Here is how they began their talk:
We've been doing this work for over 30 years, and we started working before we really had a theory about what we were doing.
We just knew that we wanted to work in neighborhoods where people didn't seem to be represented and where the architecture didn't seem to be related to its occupants.
We wanted to bring our building and their audience into a closer relationship.
One of the things we kept on bumping up against was that the particular set of architectural training and tools that we possessed created a distinct aesthetic that didn't always connect with the dreams and ambitions of the people that we were working with.
To connect our architecture to our users’ aspirations, their hopes, their experiences, we had to broaden our own architectural tool chest of techniques.
We came to realize that we were making apparent things that are too often hidden.
You can view a full video of this talk here: Erasing Invisibility - Yale Architecture