Stories of Practical Resistance
Subverting the status quo has its ups and downs, but perspective and grace are possible.
We chose the tagline, “Stories of Practical Resistance,” to capture the spirit in which our featured alumni approached their thesis projects. Each project demonstrates a quiet subversion of the status quo, a refusal to accept “that’s just the way it is.” Having worked in firms for years, I know how difficult it can be to resist the strong pull of conformity. Now that we are immersed in a climate emergency, the stakes are higher.
In professional offices, projects have many constraints. Young architects have everything to learn about budgets, schedules, the values and vision of clients, running a small (or large) business, plus all the technical aspects like engineering and energy efficiency. As Juhi noted, “It's been a real eye-opener, the conversations about sustainability that I've had with senior architects in my firm. We learn these buzzwords, like the building needs to have a tight envelope and has to have a great high performance design. And then you come to the workplace and you're like, what does that even mean? I don't even know what goes in a wall. And so I'm basically learning what goes in a wall. And I have to say it's really cool.”
Being low in the pecking order doesn’t have to hamper their enthusiasm. Ava focuses on the big picture and keeps speaking up, even when pressed for time: “That idea of sustainability can become pretty difficult when the day-to-day tasks are imminent. We have to meet deadlines, sometimes things just need to get done. But everyone that I speak to says it’s important to them. My goal this year is to learn about ways to give those opportunities to professionals, to the leadership, to have the agency to really start to implement sustainability.”
Still, it can be a challenge to navigate shifting emotions, to return again and again to the core values of environmental and social justice that informed their visionary thesis projects. As Juhi noted, “I'm not gonna lie, I have already in the last three years since graduating, lost it and found it again. I think it was precisely when you invited me to be on this podcast where I was like, oh, yeah, I used to care about that.”
We explored the challenges of keeping this spirit of resistance alive, of nurturing their optimism on the day to day, and contributing in positive ways to their project team’s efforts. Juhi related the inevitable encounter with a jaded colleague: “I've met people who said, ‘Oh, yeah, I used to be into that, but, you know, you learn and you realize that things are expensive and it's just not gonna happen and you just gotta move on.’”
Some nurture their resistance through activism outside of work. “I've learned, through working with some of my co-organizers in Design as Protest, that everybody has a part to play in the revolution,” Ava said. “And your part might not be the loudest part, it might be, but you also can't play every role. Outside of work, I am the alarm ringer. I will say the thing that people don't wanna say, but it's the truth.”
For all these young architects, the emotional ups and downs of working to change things from within a vast, long-established system can take a toll. I’m heartened by their wise insistence on patience and self-care. As Ava reminds us, “There's been days where I'm like, I used to talk about climate change every day, and the world is falling apart in our industry because we are making it this way. I would say all these things that feel true, and when you get into the day to day of life, you're really just trying to figure out where you fit into all of it. I've learned to give myself some grace.”
This project is supported by a Faculty-Student Research Award from the Graduate School, University of Maryland, as well as grants from the University’s Sustainability Fund and the School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation.
Yes and yes again to your project. I wonder if some projects like the temples to the sordid Empire's decay like bank towers ad agencies and government offices are best not erected. Or built to be readily compostable. But I am dreaming. Keep up the good work.