Bruce Sterling considers the one small voice of socially responsible architecture — and the nefariousness overwhelming it. Do-good architecture is the noble aspiration to better the shelter of mankind. Today it gets a louder hearing than usual, because the housing situation is a shambles. By 2040, a third of mankind will live in slums. Not just the poor; a third of everybody. That’s the motivating fear—the growing dread that the political and economic systems we’ve built do us active harm. There was the major trauma of Katrina, of course. Historic New Orleans collapsed, becoming a sudden sister city to the

Bruce Sterling considers the one small voice of socially responsible architecture — and the nefariousness overwhelming it. Finally, we arrive at some legal, conventional, low-income housing. This is the first of these vast and growing structural complexes not directly intended to hamper or harm people, and the first that directly involves architects and architectural ethics. But do-good architecture does not merely respond to material poverty. Instead, it tangos with the colossal dysfunctionalities outside any blueprints. Today’s durable disorder is the playground of city-busting militias, gangsters, armed fanatics, and the blooming demimondes of narcotics, offshore pollution, and human trafficking. A vast,

Bruce Sterling considers the one small voice of socially responsible architecture — and the nefariousness overwhelming it. Do-good architecture is the noble aspiration to better the shelter of mankind. Today it gets a louder hearing than usual, because the housing situation is a shambles. By 2040, a third of mankind will live in slums. Not just the poor; a third of everybody. That’s the motivating fear—the growing dread that the political and economic systems we’ve built do us active harm. There was the major trauma of Katrina, of course. Historic New Orleans collapsed, becoming a sudden sister city to the