The place of progressive architectural practice in the context of the rise and f

all of utopianism
By the periods when JS Torrance initiated the plan of his new city, the progress
ive architectural designs and the company town concept had already taken roots.
As from the development of the textile industries during the period of early par
ts of the 1800s, the industries had started relocating from the urban areas to f
ind autonomy, secure lands and security. Apart from the constructions of the fac
tories, the business owners also constructed the houses and other vital faciliti
es that could assist in the maintenance of a steady work force. There was seen t
o be the existence of the paternalistic approach where the roles of the employee
s and the managers and the landlords were defined, and the rent and other bills
were directly deducted from the paychecks of the workers. The workers, therefore
, did not like the paternalistic system leading to the great protest called the
Pullman strike of 1894. The future of the company town was therefore questioned
by the business leaders (Kirk, 2005).
From the strike, Torrance leaned of the failures of Pullman and came up with a u
nique and particular company which considered a lot the worker's homes and place
s of residence. The kind of home that was brought forward was the residential ho
mes for single families which were said to be promoting the social behaviors as
it also encouraged the families and similarly facilitated the discouragement of
unrest. The Olmsted Brothers, therefore, started the planning process for the be
tter housing that included the aspect of the newer architectural designs (Zipp,
2010).
Within the scope of architectural theory and practice, the criticisms of some of
the modern urban developments pioneered by such people as Robert Venturi and Ja
ne Jacobs back in the middle 20th century was observed to take the post-modern
urbanism in the 1990s. The factors that were facilitating the move from the mode
rnistic kind of architectural designs to the post-modernistic ones included the
continued debates that created the need for the genuine communities. Such develo
pments that were required would ultimately give a move from the works of the arc
hitects such as Le Corbusier that were described to be Universalists pretensions
.
The change to the localism from the universalism was also found to accompany wit
h it the utopianism of the current urbanism and architecture. According to Manfr
edo Tafuri, a theorist and an architectural historian from Italy in 1930, he rev
ealed that there was a failure in the utopian projections of the modernist's arc
hitectural designs because there was a lack of suitable political and economic p
reconditions in addition to only being able to offer the unattractive and intrin
sic social models. According to the researcher, the political aftermath of the e
conomic disturbance in the year 1920 might have created an erosion of avant-gard
e in architecture as a result of the pragmatism or to the change of the modern u
topian impulses into the nostalgic fascism politics (Zipp, 2010).
For Tafuri, the downfall of the utopianism in the modern architectural designs w
as a sign of the wider historical situations in which the entire cultural avant-
garde was rendered to be politically obsolete (Kirk, 2005).
Form the illustrations it is evident that the architectural practice evolved wit
h time during the utopian period and particularly when considering its rise and
fall.
How and why contemporary architectural practitioners have sought to address ques
tions of social justice
The concept of Urban Theory is described as the scenario or the phenomenon in wh
ich the economic values prevail to facilitate the propensity of the cities to be
able to accumulate and generate wealth. There is the combination of cultural, t
echnological and economic determinism to facilitate sustainable development and
social justice in the field of architecture (Knox, 1987).
Social justice has been defined as explicit recognition and identification of th
e structural inequalities within the environments in which we live in the world.
The inequalities exist in the perspective of race, class gender and other insti
tutional difference. These inequalities, therefore, require a proactive and stru
ctural mechanisms and program to be able to facilitate their encounter. On the o
ther hand, sustainable development has been defined as planning policies and bro
ad collection of principles to bring the city and urban economies and the local
land development in the in conjunction with the long terms standards of the land
scape. This is to help in supporting the urban settlement systems, thriving and
the diversity of flora and fauna and in the absorption of human waste (Aoki, 199
2).
The proponents and the advocates of sustainability have frequently emphasized o
n the significance of adding the concept of social justice to their efforts. On
the other hand, the fights for social justice continuously incorporate the conce
pt of sustainability into their agenda. The two efforts have therefore suggested
a convergence of two political associations aiming to bring together the social
and environmental politics (Raqinbow, 1995).
In addressing the question of social justice, the architectural practitioners ha
ve emphasized on the extra ordinary societal and demographic changes that curren
tly demands more enlightened designs and designers. The following major concerns
have been addressed with regards to architecture in the learning and work envir
onment:
1. There has been the inclusion of the universal design mechanisms into both
the teaching methods and the curricular in the schools and institutions of archi
tecture.
2. There have been attempts to include the disabled people in the recruitmen
t of architectural students and also in the planning of the architectural works
and issues.
3. There has been the creation of a universally designed atmosphere in the ar
chitecture environment and work place so that the faculties and the students wit
h disabilities will find a comfortable place to carry out their activities.
4. The practitioners have also made progress in shifting accessibility issues
from add-on compliance issues to the integral of the process of design.
Just cities through the sustainability in resource utilization
Social justice and sustainability are two ideas that have been identified to tar
get new directions and target teachings for participatory and collaborative rese
arch. The planning faculties in various modern institutions of higher learning a
nd universities have included these two concepts in the admission materials brin
ging about clarity for the courses taken (Frampton, 193).
The combination of sustainability with social justice is important since it faci
litates the mobilization of resources thereby contributing to the attainment of
profit driven agenda. The concept of social justice does not only involve the re
distribution of the economic and the environmental opportunities but also to rec
ognize the fact that some of the practices that are considered to be sustainable
aggravate and hide some of the equity deficits which are considered to exist al
ready (Elis, 2002).
There is a misleading balance revealed by the focus on social justice in the thr
ee pillars rhetoric of sustainability. These include the environment, economy, a
nd sustainability. Despite the fact that sustainable development and sustainabil
ity has got multiple performance and meaning, there is usually the recognition o
f the economic pillar to be having a greater over the environmental and the soci
al factors. Sustainability has remained a greater challenge in different set ups
due to the available cases of the continuous resource depletion, irreversible c
ases of land use changes, which are also unsustainable, degradation of the envir
onmental resources and environmental pollution. This still leads to the differen
ce between those who have and can access the resources and those who cannot acce
ss the resources (Bijker, 2012).
Just city through the equal distribution of resources
Harvey has defined the concept of social justice concerning the cities as a give
n defined applications of the just principles due to the conflicts that come up
as a result of the social cooperation to enhance the advancement of the individu
al members in the community. The just city should be the moral platform for the planni
ng in urban or city environment. Feinstein, a researcher, has identified that ur
ban or city justice is based on the platforms and principles of equity, democrac
y, and diversity. The principles should, therefore, be given a keen consideratio
n during the planning and implementation process of the policies that govern the
cities or the urban centers. The researcher further identifies that there exist
s a contradicting and conflicting tension between the principles but stresses on
the fact that material recognition, quality, and opportunity needs to be consid
ered (Sharp, 2005).
Justice, therefore, seeks to ensure that there is equality and even distribution
of the resources and the outcomes of effective planning so that everyone can en
joy from the good planning. This can be achieved from the rejection and the crit
icism of the planners or the individuals who have neoliberal and dominant approa
ches to planning. Justice in cities also, therefore, brings in the consideration
of collaborative and participatory aspect of planning and development. Justice
cities call on the redirection of the neoliberal planners and the practitioners
from their neoliberal economic developmental approach to the social equity, wher
e there is little or no monopolism but rather mutual benefiting by every communi
ty member in the urban environment.
Material planning for Just City.
The concept of just city has also been identified to exist if a good planning system i
s realized for the material development. A thorough scrutiny should be done to e
valuate the kind of mechanisms are involved in the development of the policies.
Other research has identified the multiplicity and flourishing of the human kind
to be the contributor to the good cities. The material aspects that constitute
a good city have been identified to originate from such aspects such as adequate
work and the social provision, the good and affordable healthcare and housing,
and the good governance is thereby facilitating the maintenance of the affairs i
n this state. There is, therefore, the call on the urban planners and the practi
tioners to use the structural and material approaches so as to facilitate the tr
ansformation of the inequalities that always existed before (Ellis, 2002).
The just city through the observation of the human rights
Every human being has the right by nature. This helps them to develop the innate
physical, intellectual and spiritual potentials in the domain of the other wide
r communities and diversity of species. The existence of the rights implies that
there have been the cases of oppression and that no freedom can be achieved bef
ore the oppression is eliminated. The human rights, therefore, give room for the
intrinsic mutual benefiting since there is no person can be fully free from the
oppression of any kind.
How the approaches help in the expansion of our understanding of the roles and p
ractice in architecture.
The approaches described in the concept of social justice for the urban architec
ture can give a lot of teaching. The approach of sustainability emphasizes the u
se of available resources in a manner that it allows for sustainability. When th
e resources are used in a sustainable manner, they give room for the current and
the future generations. In the city set up, the planners should come up with me
chanisms to ensure that their planning encourages sustainability. This will be a
ttained in the kind of plans they draw and the models they make. Sustainability
in extraction and utilization of such resources as water can be attained in some
of the designs given by the practitioners. The architectural designers and the
practitioners are therefore involved in the concept of sustainability to enable
them to come up with designs that will assist in sustainability (Punter, 1988).
Role of practitioners in the human rights approach
This approach emphasizes the need to understand the human rights and therefore a
pply it in the architectural hotel. The human rights entail the aspect of freedo
m and fairness for all the city dwellers. The architectural practitioners, there
fore, should ensure that the designs and the plans made, meet the threshold and
the standards of the human rights. If the rights of everyone are safeguarded, th
en there will be the growth and development of the cities since there will be re
duced conflicts among the residents having the same architectural practitioners.
The practitioners and the architectural managers should also ensure that their
plans and models conjunction with the guidelines and standards of the human righ
ts. This prevents the constructions of the substandard building (Rainbow, 1995).
Equal distribution of resources- the architectures should ensure that the resour
ces are distributed to bring unity in the urban set ups. The buildings with spec
ial designs should be evenly distributed in the city environment. This method wi
ll reduce the cases of slums since the initial times have always been allocated.
The practitioners should, therefore, embrace equal resource distribution in the
process of policy formulation and development.
The material approach in the roles of architecture the material approach teaches a
bout the requirement of the practitioners to be ethical in their planning and mo
deling. Some of the ethical factors which have contributed to the success of the
just city have been the consideration of aspects like adequate work and the soc
ial provision and the availability of healthcare and good housing program. Livin
g in such favorable environment shows the development of an urban area and the c
ities. The approach emphasizes the need to construct good housing systems that w
ill ensure that the living conditions of the final resident, be it the owner or
the tenant, enjoys the place of rest (Sharp, 2005).
In conclusion, the different practices of architectural activities and designs c
an be traced from the ancient times during the rise and fall of the utopian era.
There are also quite some illustrations through case studies which show how the
practitioners have labored to try and attain the social justice. Some of the me
chanisms used to ascertain social justice include ensuring the enhancement of su
stainability, materialism and following the standards to ensure that they confor
m to the international community.