The semicolon is a symbol of “depression” but at the same time it also is used as a symbol of hope, strength, solidarity and empowerment; it is used when an author could have ended the sentence but chose not to; it is used to shift or surprise, modify or amend; it allows generosity; ambiguity; using the semicolon signifies we are continuing to (co)-author a bigger story as an individual or collective; the story evolves in the form of collective memory; collective memory creates and recreates itself; there is no one conclusion; it is about moments of impact and moments of realization;
Every week 500 people begin a new life in San Antonio. By 2045 the fastest-growing city’s population will double, rising to an estimated 2.8 million, exposing entrenched inequities, like the nation’s second-highest poverty rate. San Antonio struggles with uneven economic and urban growth, as most new developments take place North, potentials in the South are unrealized. Responding to the political climate we founded a the Urban Future Lab at UTSA and initiated a pilot project in two of the nation’s lowest-income communities; Mission San Jose and Quintana exemplify how proximity to significant economic assets, a UNESCO World-Heritage Site ($150-million regional-impact) and Port San Antonio ($5.3-billion), does not activate environments.
At stake is the enlargement of the field of vision for a new spatial contract. Economic segregation and social injustice increased our awareness of design’s role in community development but also our perception of community. Surface perception from Census-data starkly contrasts with actual realities––bigdata does not reflect community. Are we even asking the right questions? Particularly in our pilot communities, unbiased data is scarce. In fact, data is conditioned by business, commercial, and political interests. We instead captured actual realities represented by personalized, unconditional data. Responding to misconceptions, we aspired to develop an Archive of Collective Knowledge to rectify these disparities. The archive, however, did not materialize as a design-intervention but was exemplified by collective knowledge. Our strategic partnerships elicited courage and inspired new vectors of action, personalization, and commoning; this is the new spatial contract shifting the focus from what can be done to what ought to be done.
The project’s ethos is social, civic, and humanistic, and how holistic balance is vital in gaining intellectual competency to engage with complexities intrinsic to the “whole” environment, even if they fall outside architecture’s disciplinary and institutional scope. Only then we perceive coming into consciousness as a moment determining whether or not we succeeded in addressing the pressing challenges placed in front of us.
