Author Description

We live in a time characterized by violence, racism,inequality, supremacy, ignorance. These actions prompt responses, daily and globally, from Tweets to boycotts, but also kindness and unintended heroism. George Bernard Shaw said, "The possibilities arenumerous once we decide to act and not to react."In the built environment, both microscopic and urbanistic, design interventions react to constraints of nature, clients, budgets, structural limits.What of Intervention as Act?Can an intervention to an existing structure think? yell? scream? whisper?Can an intervention to an existing structure prompt performance? engagement? revision? negation?Can an intervention to an existing structure create sanctuary? absolve? moralize? redeem? ideate? appropriate? heal? And what of the building's original intent?Can an intervention be an act of defiance, one of division, one of resistance?If Intervention as Act implies a breaking away, a shift from the status quo, an adaptation to a new context, can that adaptation bring occupants to ACT?