Collaboration: Propelling An Expanded Practice
Architectural practice is risky. While new models continually emerge and reshape the practice landscape, the institutional, financial, and social pressures toward normalization as a way to mitigate risk remain substantial. This paper considers three collaborative models that, while operating within the normative constraints of practice,
exhibit a measure of deviation from these constraints while providing outlets for project innovation and creativity. By examining these discrete forms of practice experimentation through the lens of institutional heterogeneity, we may anticipate new models for future practice.
Previously published: Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Annual Meeting, 2017, Detroit, MI
Caryn Brause is Associate Professor and M.Arch Graduate Program Director in the Department of Architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Caryn’s research investigates critical skills for contemporary practice, both technological and interpersonal. She is author of The Designer’s Field Guide to Collaboration (Routledge, 2017). She received an AIA/ACSA Practice + Leadership Award in 2016 and an NCARB Award for the Integration of Practice and Education in 2013 for her project Voices from the Field, which uniquely blends instruction in design, materials, methods, and documentation with first-hand observation of construction and professional practice. Caryn is also a founding editorial board member of the Journal of Technology | Architecture + Design (TAD), which is dedicated to the advancement of scholarship in the field of building technology, with a particular focus on its translation, integration, and impact on architecture and design.