This digital exhibit is about SOCIOARC - a way of investigating and designing spaces that brings together architectural and sociological methods -  and how to use this theory and method for transformative designs. It documents SOCIOARC design studio classes at Rutgers University, Department of Landscape Architecture in relation to designs for the New Brunswick area. 

Visit the full Exhibit at https://rootedhistory-exhibits.com/socioarc/

Click on the links below to access the exhibits at the new server. Please note that you will leave Rutgers University Library's site when you click on any of the links on this page. 

     

     

“We merged sociology and architecture to create SOCIOARC, a process of aesthetic and substantive reconciliation to arrive at just and beautiful places, as collectively defined. In SOCIOARC the “good” and the “just” is not prescriptive and has no predetermined shape or form. Rather, the “just,” the “good,” and the “beautiful is defined through a dynamic iterative process that invites different positions and voices to come together. SOCIOARC is also an epistemological, methodological, and practical framework for studying and producing the built environment. Epistemology refers to the frames of knowing that we bring to our work: how we evaluate what we see, thereby laying the groundwork for how we act on the world. This attention that we bring to the world is shaped by our social and cultural identities, as well as our disciplinary trainings (in this case in architecture and sociology). SOCIOARC seeks to unsettle siloed ways of seeing and imagining the world, in order to see through a new shared lens. Epistemology shapes the methods we favor and use. Therefore, the first step of the guided SOCIOARC approach is to look again, through new lenses, at an expanded architecture and sociology, in order to be ready for the methods described in the second part of the book.

This requires sociologists and architects to engage in a process and a methodology that draws from the community, and from culture, and from people to design the built environment in a new SOCIOARC way. Bringing the sociologist and architect together gestures towards a specific kind of product. This is not about just making a community healthier, or more efficient, or nicer. It is about thinking of the elements, processes, and methods that could produce a more just, social, creative, and innovative design. ”

— Bakshi & Dinzey-Flores - Collaborations in Architecture & Sociology

Caption for Image Above: SOCIOARC Pythagorean Spiral
The SOCIOARC spiral, created by bringing the dialogic triangles together as a Pythagorean spiral. Diagram by Anita Bakshi. A drawing showing a Pythagorean spiral as composed from the diagrams of four triangles of different proportions. The triangles are each composed of orange-pink, purple, and teal segments. They come together to form a shell-like shape.

Captions for Exhibit Title Cards at top of page  (clockwise from top left) 

1- Exhibit Title Card - "SOCIOARC Theory & Methods," "SOCIOARC brings together architectural & sociological methods for working with communities on design projects ." This text is on a blue. textured background. An image on the right shows a human figure standing on two feet with one hand stretched up into the air and the other stretched down. The figure has a short, spiky haircut and appears to be of medium build. The figure is outlined in a thick hand-drawn black line. Inside the figure are high contrast collages of both people and buildings. Immediately adjacent to the figure, the orange and teal overlays swirl and interlock.

2- Exhibit Title Card - "SOCIOARC Book," This exhibit is a walk through of the Collaborations in Architecture and Sociology book by Anita Bakshi & Zaire Dinzey-Flores (Routledge, 2026) " This text is on a textured coral-colored background. On the right is a photo of the cover of the book.

3- Exhibit Title Card - "Transition Design after Capitalism for Social Innovation." "Rutgers Landscape Architecture 2025 Praxis SOCIOARC Studio Dr. Anita Bakshi ." This text sits on a textured background with horizontal lines in teal and coral colors. The bottom left of the image contains illegible text that is there just for texture

4- Exhibit Title Card - "New Brunswick: People & Place" "Learrn more about New Brunswick, NJ including histories of places and peoples, development and gentrification, and arts and culture." This text sits on a textured background of diagonal lines. On the bottom right is a photograph of a mural in New Brunswick. There is a wall painted dark blue, with green letters and small squares.

5- Exhibit Title Card - "Transition Design for Art, Ecology, and Local History" "Rutgers Landscape Architecture 2026 Praxis SOCIOARC Studio Dr. Anita Bakshi ." This text sits on a textured background with horizontal lines in teal and coral colors. The bottom of the images shows a drawing of a forest in different shades of green.