21)  What do Universal Rights hold for you, for me, for us?

It is crucial not to narrow universal rights to a juridical debate and to start seeing them as powerful tools to construct better cities. And with an increasing number of urban planners and states reluctant to honor human-rights treaties, it might be also very smart.

Today’s urbanization is so pervasive that we cannot fail to notice when architecture is part of the solution or when it is part of the problem. Architects are increasingly coming up against humanitarian challenges and strategically tackling challenges such as climate-risk mitigation, sustainable day-to-day living, development aid, and healthcare. Now it’s obvious that what they are dealing with is the practical reality of human rights.

Top-down planning, the communal process of shaping public space, land use regulation, community inclusion, bonding designs, and engagement with a diverse cast of individuals: all shape the way a city is renewed. All involve a choice of whether or not to compromise on people’s rights.

In its latest role, architecture deals with global issues and new social trends and, more meaningfully, experiments with potential answers. The urbanization we are witnessing on a global scale is a striking sign of the aspirations of all people for freedom and for recognition of their fundamental and inalienable rights. Another way of putting it is this: In this 21st century human rights can be a positive force for change, by which we can all gain. We all want to get away from the idea that rights must always involve winners and losers—my gain, your loss, or vice versa. In order to do so, we have to change our approach from the architecture of crisis into the architecture of innovation.

The very practical implications of this challenge means that if we want to empower people’s rights through our design, we must respect and listen to the knowledge of the people who will inhabit our architecture. The trick is to listen. We can commit to working with people to develop a range of urban solutions; we can address and dismantle any barriers they face; and we can share their ambitions for the changes they want to see. All people deserve no less.

The more understanding we become, the richer our design will be. This means that effective solutions to the problems faced by poor people must be drawn from the experiences of poor people themselves; effective solutions to the problems disabled people face must be drawn from experiences of disabled people themselve … and so on.

The same project approached by two very different architects will be interpreted in two very different ways, based on what they know about the people they are building for. Many people worry that aesthetics kills ethics, that inclusion kills profit, that human rights kill creativity, but I don’t think this is true at all. It is simply not true that designing something from an ethical point of view diminishes the richness of the design. Quite the opposite.

By putting people at the core, we are building in a way which could break down traditional barriers between different groups and in doing so, create possibilities for meaningful conversations around social justice. How about if architecture doesn’t just correlate with human rights, but actually emerges from it?