Dialectic III

The third issue of Dialectic focuses on the history, theory, and practice of design-build studios and the nonprofit design industry. A critical venue for articulating the challenges and opportunities for architects in contemporary practice, Dialectic engages faculty and students through self-inquiry and reflection while supporting the evolution of the University of Utah’s pedagogic mission.

As learning environments, design-build studios draw students out of the grounded certainties of home and school, and transport them to a world incompatible with the accepted norms of their educational institutions. Design-build studios force investigation of the ordinary, the understated, and the invisible. With efforts inventing projects that are financed with soft funds, they produce clients and do so in communities too poor to be of interest to the real estate industry and too voiceless to be heard by their government