The impulse to be genuinely useful is one that we should cultivate, encourage and celebrate. How can architects get the opportunity to work for these refugees when our governments build fences, stop the boats, or detain them in offshore prisons? Writing in Architecture Australia in 2008, he states the simple aim of his work as “to improve living conditions.” Achieving this aim demanded housing that satisfies things we would take for granted: “the ability to wash children, wash clothes and bedding, remove waste water safely, improve nutrition, reduce the negative impacts of crowding, reduce the negative impacts of insects and animals, control dust, control temperature and reduce minor trauma.” Working largely with indigenous communities, he took on the hardest problems, with the greatest enthusiasm, on behalf of those who had the least. Being good, as measured by the criteria of the profession, rarely has anything to do with doing good. What does it mean to be a good architect? And what does it mean to use architecture for good? Confusingly, in architecture, these are two very different propositions. The tragic passing of Paul Pholeros earlier this month has made me think hard about the point of architecture. Healthabitat’s matrix of basic home improvements.
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