School of Architecture faculty Chad Smith will present his paper “Out Of Context” at the Architecture, Media, Politics, and Society (AMPS) annual conference June 24-26, 2026, in Madrid, Spain. The title of this year’s conference is “Contemporary Teaching in a Time of Change”, and is the keystone in a series of AMPS conferences focusing on Pedagogy in 2026.
The paper is an outgrowth of the 400-level Advanced Design Studio that Chad taught in the fall of 2025 of the same name. Usually when architects think of “context” it refers to designing with existing historical or urban fabric. Today, designing “with context” is an assumption so familiar that there is little critical thinking about it. However this was not always the case: in the middle of the 20th century the idea of contextual design was a relatively new critique of a globalized Modernism. The studio examined the limits to building affordable housing by going Out Of Context. The students explored skills to influence a cultural conversation around housing, and examined how architectural craft can itself be the genesis of urban context. Chad’s presentation will explore the idea that the solution to housing is not only a problem of technique but one of culture, and will use examples from the studio as case studies for a pedagogical approach that prepares students for our housing crisis.