Free School of Architecture Toolkit
I’ve been participating at the Free School of Architecture (FSA) for 2 weeks now, and with 2 more weeks to go, I’ve been thinking about a project I’d like to work on in this time.
Architecture, Art, Education
It might be an Architecture, Urban Planning, Social Spaces, or Homelessness project. Or, with the flexibility of FSA, I could work on an Art project like Letters to Skynet or Love Beach. But what I’m particularly feeling at this moment is the power of FSA’s uncollege take on architecture education.
I think I’d like to create an Open Source FSA Toolkit that would help people at other locations create their own versions of FSA. Or perhaps like “TEDx”, their own “FSAx”.
Open Source
For me, Free Culture, Open Source Software, and Open Education all connect. They all help move past models of owning knowledge and empower individuals to find their own paths regardless of money, privilege, or access to special materials, people, or experiences. I feel this sensibility powerfully in FSA, although I, in fact, need to discuss this with the FSA organizers, since I don’t specifically know their position on sharing the paradigm they’ve created.
What’s in the toolkit?
As someone who’s never organized The Free School of Architecture, I don’t even know what I don’t know. Some things that could be in the toolkit include
- Philosophy / Guiding Principles
- Your Call for Participants
- Selecting Participants
- Location (City)
- Location (Facilities)
- Guest Speakers
- Session Planning
- Length of Term
- Scheduling
- Budget
- Online Tools: Website, Are.na, Slack, Instagram
Additionally, it might be enriching to include short videos from current participants commenting on:
- What drew them to FSA
- How their experience has been
- What should be kept
- Potential Improvements
Toolkit Delivery
Potential Toolkit media:
- Web Pages
- Print on Demand Book
The web version might be easiest both to make and distribute. It should serve most users needs. It shouldn’t be too hard to also repurpose that content into a freely downloadable PDF, and the PDF could also be placed at a print-on-demand repository if anyone wanted a physical copy to work with.
Reference
FSA Links
- freeschoolofarchitecture.org
- instagram.com/freeschoolofarchitecture
- facebook.com/freeschoolofarchitecture
- are.na/free-school-of-architecture-2018/sessions
Human Centered Design
Glenn’s Links
- portfolio
- runaway.university
- mediciuniversity.co.uk
- Intro to the Visual Arts @ Long Beach State
- Artists Websites @ Long Beach State
- Video: TEDx Burn the University Catalog
- Letter: To Future TEDxCSULB Speakers
- Video: What sort of “feature” is Open Source
FSA Event Photo Documentation on Metro
- glenn.zucman.com/metro/fsa-party
- glenn.zucman.com/metro/arts-district
- glenn.zucman.com/metro/la-forum-reader
- glenn.zucman.com/metro/roundhouse
- glenn.zucman.com/metro/instagramification
- glenn.zucman.com/metro/fsa
Or, to see everything:
