Socio-Economic aspect in Architecture Pedagogy

Buildings contribute to social sustainability by providing environments that support communities in meeting their social needs, and understanding how the design, construction, and operation of buildings affect the environment ~ James Wilson,2018?

The three aspects of environmental sustainability as stated are environmental, social, and economic sustainability in which the one which is most highlighted is the 'environmental sustainability' shadowing the other two. Sustainability emphasizes the importance of strengthening relationships between individuals. So, it is not just a matter of creating public space?per se?but also to design the necessary devices to allow society to “participate” in its management or “decide” their use and destiny (MoreThanGreen,2019).

With economic sustainability, the politics of common-sense builds places that undertake a rational consumption of the possible and in balance with the natural and cultural environment (MoreThanGreen,2019).?The social value derives from outcomes has a positive effect on the collective quality of life and relates to those things that impact livability—like health and wellness, security and resilience, and equity and accessibility (JamesWilson,2018). At a minimum, a project should not only strive to not harm the existing community but also creates additional positive outcomes for the community.

Parameters that would help in addressing the extent of socioeconomic sustainability in the architecture pedagogy could be stated as-

• Democratic balance: Implies the degree of freedom in the initial phase of the data collection that is, the degree of allowance to gather the information as per the requirements of the design.
• Interaction with the people: This signifies the involvement of the community in the shaping of their environment, the level up to which the design is being governed by the collective service engaging with the broad range of socio-economic needs.
• Usage and identity: The creation of the necessary devices to assume, imagine, and usually interpret the needs and behavior of people while allowing the society to participate(directly or indirectly) in its management.
• Social justice: Establishing equity in the project to accomplish sustainability in the broader sense of socio and economic measures could be achieved by encouraging the?co-existence between a group of people through design, actions, and policies.
• Rationale consumption: Politics of common sense establishing the smart and strategic management of the resources in balance with the natural and cultural environment.
• Value of intervention: Based on the various factors of the theoretical, aesthetical, functional, and technical aspects of the design being evolved out by the respective processes in the architecture pedagogy.

The lack in the social context of the architecture pedagogy results in the lack of concern for environmental sustainability aspects. The participatory design approach opens to a wide range of non-materialized ideas that could be used in driving the interventions. The process of giving form to the social life of the community and following the community-integrated approach is what the current curriculum demands. Omitting the users usually incapacitates them.

The following interventions could be included in the traditional studio design practices to develop an overall understanding of environmental sustainability-

• Students at the institutional level must be taught about following the multi-disciplinary approach of sustainable architecture with the environmental concern in context to the socio-economic aspect.
• Real-life issues must be incorporated in the design brief to have a practical approach to eliminate the habit of compromising on the basic technicalities faced during the projects.?
• Socio-economic sustainability should properly be taken care of.
• The proposed design should fulfill the stability aspects in terms of the materials used, ideas incorporated, etc.
• Collaborative approaches provide the practical solution for utilizing the effective principles of sustainable development on both the environmental and architectural aspects.?

Good design requires attention and sensitivity to social, economic, political, cultural, and behavioral issues. The need is to prepare the students for the outside world, to tackle the confusion in the application of what is being learned in the design principle into the practical world, keeping the approach to be stable & sustainable in a broader aspect.