DESIGNING SOLUTIONS: ARCHITECT STRIVES FOR SOCIAL REPAIR THROUGH EDUCATION
New Charter School in Georgia Focuses on Architecture and Design by Krystal-Rose Agu
A
s a child, Tariq Abdullah would sit on the living room floor of his home and ask his older siblings to draw him pictures of a house and a car so he could color them in.
The car reminded him of his uncle, an engineer who owned a Porsche 911 during that time.
Abdullah’s grandmother visited often, and took notice of the pictures he colored. She often asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up and, thinking of his uncle, Abdullah gave his usual response: an architectural engineer.
Abdullah grew up in the inner city of Detroit, in the 1980s, a time when crack cocaine and other drugs began infiltrat- ing the city and other major metropolitan areas through- out the U.S. By 1988, crack cocaine had become the greatest drug problem in Detroit; its use was responsible for an increase in violence in many large U.S. cities during that time, including Detroit, according to a U.S. Drug En- forcement Administration’s 1985-1990 report on the na- tion’s cocaine epidemic.
Abdullah’s mother didn’t want her children engaging with the wrong crowds or getting into trouble on the street. In her eyes, inner city public schools often served as
gateways to harmful, self-destructive choices. So, she mostly homeschooled her seven kids, and also sent them to private school when she could afford to do so.
Abdullah’s understanding of the direct correlation between educational environments and opportunities in life was informed, in part, by his mother’s view on the cultural mal- function of certain traditional public school systems.
AN ARCHITECT’S RESPONSE TO A SOCIAL PROBLEM
Abdullah obtained his Master of Architecture degree from the University of Detroit Mercy (UDM), a private Roman Catholic institution in Detroit, where he learned about the significance of using architecture to address areas in need of social repair. However, remnants of his childhood never left him, and he found a disconnect in solely focusing on environmental sustainability.
“If the city is falling apart, what does a green building do for the people who are being robbed down the street?” Abdullah says. “I saw neighborhoods and communi- ties that were hurting—they called for social repair more than anything.”
26
THE WHO’S WHO IN BUILDING & CONSTRUCTION
DISCOVER MORE @
WWW.THEWHOSWHO.BUILD
COURTESY OF BARAKAH PHOTOGRAPHY
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134
