Beauty, Sustainability, and Equity in Built Environment
Introduction
Architecture continues to hold an important position in human existence as it presents all aspects of human life, including context, landscape, people, art, and culture. The use of architecture has expanded to broader socio-political aspects, whereby architecture is deployed as one of the instruments of communicating some of the political and social problems within a society.
Whitney Young Jr., in the 1988 AIA Convention speech, stated that “…You are not a profession that has distinguished itself by your social and civic contributions to the cause of civil rights…You are most distinguished by your thunderous silence and your complete irrelevance” (Sablan para 1). The quote by Whitney Young Jr. aimed at addressing the role of architects in the community. Young rebuked the architects who were only using their profession to primarily serve the wealthy patrons, which exclusively fostered and perpetuated great inequality in the built environment. Young considered the inequalities in the built environment that adversely communities of color. Young’s quote was a wake-up call for architects to utilize the power they held to present more than just themselves and their economic interests and start providing a quintessential presentation towards the achievement of equitable diversity.
To make the profession of architecture more relevant based on the Whitney Young Jr. quote, this paper utilizes three thematic areas, including Beauty, Sustainability, and Equity. The theme of Beauty involves the architect’s ability to present a structure that demonstrates Beauty based on the context, landscape, art, people, culture, and the surrounding environment that is located. Sustainability’s theme involves the ability of the architecture designed to support the attainment of a certain concept or value in the society with the current situation or future generations. The theme of equity involves the architecture’s ability to address socio-political aspects in the society, such as racial discrimination in terms of settlements and built environment.
The past two years have seen the whole world revisit the most disturbing issue of racial discrimination. Several sectors have reported increased racial discrimination, including sports, employment, educational institution, and law enforcement. Therefore, with racial discrimination becoming a significant challenge, architects have a role to play to aid the community in the fight against racial discrimination by appreciating all races, and helping the community achieve racial balance sustainability for the current and future generations.
Beauty
The challenge of racial discrimination has currently posed to society requires well-structured tactics to handle it. The built environment is one of the platforms that can address the racial issue in society by acknowledging the beauty of different types of anti-racial architecture in the Nation. The built environment can physically manifest different ideological perspectives, including those that indicate anti-racial in the community (WAI Architecture Think Tank para 1). The Beauty theme has been utilized in various anti-racist monuments to demonstrate the enormous contribution of Black Americans. With the use of beauty, architects can design buildings and other structures such as statues that demonstrate the beauty that lies in a combination of races and each race’s role in attaining beauty in the built environment.
Whitney Young Jr.’s quote creates the need for professionals to utilize beauty in the built environment to address society’s racial discrimination issue. Some of the works that professionals have utilized beauty for the anti-racial purpose include the National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, located in a historic Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. spent his last hours. The former Lorrain Motel was has been remodified as the National Civil Rights Museum, which has rooms containing exhibits, such as slave’s oral histories and the old Greyhound bus from the Freedom Rider protest of 1961 (Ekstein and Ballentine). The architects that worked on the Museum modified it to illustrate the beauty behind the African American role in fighting for racial equality in America.
Therefore, the utilization of beauty in the built environment can play a significant role in creating the ideology of equality in terms of race and how each race matters in developing an environment that suits everyone. However, beauty should be sustained to have an impact on current and future generations.
Sustainability
Sustainability in the society to ensure the racial discrimination issues remain in the past can be attained through a built environment. The architectures developed towards supporting the community in the effort to deal with the racial discrimination issue should hold features that enable to enhance sustainability. For instance, the built environment that involved the theme of beauty requires sustainability to see it achieve the intended role of demonstrating racial equality and the role of a different race in America for the current and future generations. The theme of sustainability also supports preserving the culture, art, and context related to anti-racial that can help the current and future efforts of dealing with the racial discrimination issues in society.
Whitney Young Jr.’s quote captures the need for professionals to engage in social and civic contributions, including aiding the community to achieve sustainability in terms of the fight against racial discrimination for the current and future generations. The fight against racial discrimination has been ongoing for centuries, and creating a more sustainable measure through a built environment can provide an ever-present reminder to society about what is at stake and the importance of maintaining the efforts to eradicate the issue in society. The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) has been on the forefront to enhance the development of sustainable architectures across the United States. AAM has advocated for the maintenance of exceptional museums such as the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). NMAAHC was established in 2003 by congress to exclusively documents African American life, their history, and culture (Klem para 1-3). The Museum is an example in the built environment that Young highlights in the quote, enabling the community to reflect on the past and impact racial discrimination hard, enabling the community to enhance the efforts to deal with the issue now and in the future.
Therefore, professional advocating and involvement in developing the built environment that offers support to the community to achieve sustainability for the current and future generations are crucial in fighting against racial discrimination.
Equity
The fight against racial discrimination starts within the neighborhoods, which means that the built environment in the community should demonstrate equity in terms of the design and construction of buildings. Equity in the built environment will play a significant role in aiding the community towards achieving racial equality for current and future generations through fostering a diverse neighborhood (Melton para 1-3). For many years, most African Americans have been associated with a built environment with inequitable planning, underinvestment, and disinvestment, which has widened the racial discrimination issue. With the utilization of equity in the built environment, professionals will design buildings and communities that can address the chronic inequalities that tend to fuel racial discrimination (Blander). The built-in equity also enables different races to live in the same community, which fosters interaction and understating of each other’s culture, art, and context, reducing racial-related discrimination.
Whitney Young Jr.’s quote criticizes the professionals who do not consider improving the community’s well-being. However, with built-in equity, the professionals can design and construct buildings that would aid the community in eliminating the current racial discrimination issues and the future. The professional can become more relevant in using an equity built environment through green design. The greener designed has been considered one of the equity approaches that professionals are engaged in to support the community in fighting the racial discrimination issue (Blueprint for Better). An example of equity in a built environment includes the Othello Square Affordable Homeownership Building in Seattle, designed to accommodate low-income families. The four-building complex includes schools, clinics, and affordable commercial space that would increase multicultural communities’ opportunity to live together. Such built environment projects based on equity would see the community come close to solving the racial discrimination issues as they allow individuals to learn how to appreciate each other’s racial status.
Therefore, the utilization of equity by professionals in the built environment will create a diverse society that would aid the community to achieve sustainability for anti-racial for the current and future generations.
Conclusion
Architects’ role in supporting community efforts in the fight against racial discrimination continues to show an impact. Based on Young’s speech, architecture still has a long way to go in terms of positively impacting society. However, the field can move forward by utilizing various concepts such as equity, beauty, and sustainability.
Work Cited
Blander, Akiva. Architects Leading the Way to Racial Justice. Metropolis. 2020. https://www.metropolismag.com/ideas/architects-racial-justice/. Accessed on 17 Nov. 2020.
Blueprint for Better. Improving Racial Equity Through Greener Design. 2020. https://blueprintforbetter.org/articles/improving-racial-equity-through-greener-design/. Accessed on 17 Nov. 2020.
Ekstein, Nikki and Claire Ballentine. The Best Anti-Racist Monuments to Visit in America. Bloomberg. 2020. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-05/the-best-anti-racist-monuments-to-visit-in-america. Accessed on 17 Nov. 2020.
Klem, Joseph. American Alliance of Museums Honors National Museum of African American History and Culture With Chair’s Leadership Award. American Alliance of Museums. 2017. https://www.aam-us.org/2017/05/01/american-alliance-of-museums-honors-national-museum-of-african-american-history-and-culture-with-chairs-leadership-award/?gclid=CjwKCAjwjqT5BRAPEiwAJlBuBSEro1poqQlEW7jWM9jzwAJI-TIWOjsP8ovZcvU7hORJZ39DC7DZbxoCMHkQAvD_BwE. Accessed on 17 Nov. 2020.
Melton, Paula. Equity in Design and Construction: Seven Case Studies. Building Green. 2020. https://www.buildinggreen.com/feature/equity-design-and-construction-seven-case-studies. Accessed on 17 Nov. 2020.
Sablan, Pascale. A Brief History: The National Organization of Minority Architects. National Council of Architectural Registration Boards. 2020. https://www.ncarb.org/blog/a-brief-history-the-national-organization-of-minority-architects. Accessed on 17 Nov. 2020.
WAI Architecture Think Tank. Un-making ARCHITECTURE: An anti-racist architecture manifesto. 2020. https://www.archpaper.com/2020/06/un-making-architecture-an-anti-racist-architecture-manifesto/. Accessed on 17 Nov. 2020.

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