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Architecture is Climate Architecture is Climate Architecture is Climate Architecture is Climate Architecture is Climate

  • Foundations
  • Practices
  • Futures
FOUNDATIONS interprets the historical and current connections between architecture and the roots of climate breakdown. The section introduces the sites of climate breakdown and the issues which produce and reproduce it, alongside various theoretical and practical positions that have addressed and continue to address the causes. Engagement with climate can only be meaningful through an understanding of these foundations. Read more

Climate breakdown is not a natural phenomenon, but a product of capitalism and the modes of thinking with which it approaches and appropriates nature. Architecture often only addresses the symptoms of climate breakdown, through various forms of adaptation and mitigation. This solutionist approach leaves the underlying roots of climate breakdown both unexamined and undisturbed, allowing the crises to perpetuate. FOUNDATIONS explores these roots, first by identifying a range of issues—exploiting, accumulating, etc.—in order to ground them as modern capitalist ways of thinking and acting. The sites—land, culture, work, etc.—are the various contexts in which climate breakdown is played out, all of which have spatial implications. Alongside these are a set of positions from which to reconfigure social and spatial relations to nurture climate justice. A library of books and other forms of writing gathers key points of inspiration which have informed Architecture is Climate.

  • Issues
  • Sites
  • Positions
  • Library
PRACTICES is not about architecture as you know it. This section of the website gathers examples from multiple regions, contexts, and disciplines, which directly address climate breakdown and its spatial implications. Together, they point towards other forms of action and potentials for spatial practice beyond current architectural responses. The variety of approaches reflects the need for architecture to look beyond its self-defined, often technocratic, boundaries. Read more
PRACTICES encompass projects, people, policies, organisations, typologies, philosophies, concepts, economies, architectures, and more. It foregrounds processes, ethics, and actions that are directly and productively dealing with climate breakdown through various forms of organisation, governance and collaboration. It situates future architecture in a broad field beyond the technocratic, solutionist, approaches that dominate current architectural approaches in relation to climate. PRACTICES asks you to situate and then develop your own work in this expanded, hopeful, context. Each example is described in terms of its context (the issues it faces, how it was developed) and its practices (identifying its forms of action and following its implications for spatial practices in relation to climate). Examples are tagged with the sites in which they intervene and the issues they address. This allows you to filter the examples in relation to your own interests and projects. Each example also has links to external resources and further reading. Drawing on the FOUNDATIONS and presenting viable FUTURES, the PRACTICES section constitutes the core of the Architecture is Climate website.
  • Map
  • Index
FUTURES are multiple; they already exist in the gaps in the present. This section proposes ways of thinking and acting in order to achieve climate justice. The homepage is a cloud of prompts; click on the ones that seem relevant to your own work, and find a short explanation, links to relevant practices and in some cases things to do. Taken together, they support you in making choices for viable futures in the face of climate breakdown. Read more
Neither a definitive list nor a set of instructions, the prompts are catalysts for rethinking relationships such as those between labour and economy, resources and policy, or infrastructures and culture. They can be used when you are stuck with a text, a project, a context, or any other dilemma, to direct your thinking in another way. They work best when they are not used in isolation. Use two. Use three. Use a bundle of them. This will help you to look at your project from a different perspective. Sometimes the prompts come with an exercise (which grounds the prompt in a specific activity). Each is linked to relevant PRACTICES to give pointers of how such futures might be enacted, and to give confidence that you are not alone.

Architecture is Climate

Architecture is Climate is a project that reimagines the future of architecture through exploring its entanglement with climate breakdown. The website is divided into three sections: FOUNDATIONS sets the background themes and issues; PRACTICES gathers inspiring examples across multiple disciplines; FUTURES prompts paths forward. All three parts are interlinked, to understand the connections between pasts, presents, and futures.

Climate breakdown fundamentally alters architecture as we know it: as discipline, practice, field, and education. The systemic changes required to avoid complete ecological collapse should be accompanied by reimagined forms of architecture. This website therefore moves beyond architecture as defined solely by buildings (because that continues the status quo), and instead presents paths to other ways of doing architecture beyond the current norms. FOUNDATIONS interprets the roots of climate breakdown in relation to architecture and collects theoretical and historical resources that have addressed them. It is only through understanding these foundations that architecture can meaningfully engage with climate. PRACTICES gathers a multitude of spatial and non-spatial examples that present powerful counterweights to the roots of climate breakdown, suggesting ways of doing otherwise. FUTURES prompts how other social and spatial practices might be imagined and enacted.

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About

Architecture is Climate grew out of a research grant Architecture after Architecture: Spatial Practice in the Face of the Climate Emergency, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). 

Team

The project team is the research collective MOULD, whose core members are: 

Sarah is a spatial practitioner based in Berlin. She is part of the team behind Floating University , involved in the programming at this in this urban water infrastructure. She is currently a researcher at the Institute for History and Theory of Architecture and the City at the Technical University Braunschweig .

Anthony is an architect and researcher. He is currently a Lecturer in Architecture and Climate at the University of Sheffield. His PhD at the University of Westminster was part of the project Monsoon Assemblages. He was then post-doctoral research fellow at Central Saint Martins on the Architecture after Architecture research grant.  

Tatjana is an architectural theorist and critical urban scholar. She is Head of the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture and the City (GTAS) at the Technical University of Braunschweig. Previously she worked at the School of Architecture at the University of Sheffield and at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. She is the author and co-author of numerous books, including Spatial Agency (2011), Living the City. Of Cities, People and Stories (2020) and Making Futures (2022).

Christina is an architect, researcher and co-founder of TiriLab Initiative. Her practice intersects research, mapping visualisation and design. She was previously Principal Researcher in Terreform, a New York Center for Advanced Urban Research, regarding indigenous knowledge, alternative educational models and self-sufficiency. She is currently a researcher at the Institute for History and Theory of Architecture and the City at the Technical University Braunschweig.

Jeremy is a writer, educator and recovering architect. Formerly Head of Central Saint Martins and Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Arts London, he is Professor Emeritus at UAL. He is the author and co-author of numerous books including: Flexible Housing (2007), Architecture Depends (2009), Spatial Agency (2011), and The Design of Scarcity (2015). 

Becca is a film historian and cultural critic who writes on film, art and visual culture, particularly in relation to politics and ecology. Becca is a Lecturer at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She earned her PhD at Harvard University in 2021, writing a global history of eco-political film. She was then post-doctoral research fellow at Central Saint Martins on the Architecture after Architecture research grant.  

Collaborators

MOULD are very grateful to the following people for their contribution to the website:

  • Friederike Wolf (for her wonderful design)
  • Alfonso Sánchez Uzábal (for his brilliant coding)
  • Sib Trigg (for research and content of practice entries)
  • Anna Richter (for precise copyediting)
  • Burcu Daglayan (for final material review and upload)
  • Julius Grambow (for initial research on practices)

Acknowledgements

The following people were generous their time and expertise in recommending practices for inclusion on the website: Buhle Mathole; Esther Charlesworth; Luna Khirfan; Philadelphia Makwakwa; Kaisu Mustonen.

MOULD would also like to acknowledge the wonderful support and advice from their advisory group for the project:  

Durganand Balsavar (Saveetha College of Architecture & Design, Chennai)
Kadambari Baxi (Barnard College, New York)
Momoyo Kajima (Atelier Bow-Wow, Tokyo)
Andong Lu (Nanjing University)
Stephanie Wakefield (Life University, Atlanta)
Arturo Escobar (University of North Carolina) 

MOULD have also been receiving institutional support from Technische Universität Braunschweig and Central Saint Martins (UAL). 

 

Critical friends

We have also benefited from conversations with: Nick Axel (e-flux), François Bao, Nitin Bathla, Katharina Beckmann, Ana Dana Beroš, Al Borde Arquitectos, Janna Bystrykh, Catharina Caspari, Juan Chacón (Zuloark), Hernando Chindoy, Climate + Cities, Adriana Cobo Corey, Teresa Dillon (Soft Agency), Manuel Ehlers, Adolfo Estalella, Ignacio Farías, Jörg Finkbeiner, Aldea Foundation, Jana Gebauer, Léon Gross, Christian Haid (Habitat Unit Berlin), Gabu Heindl, Elisa Iturbe, Charles Jencks Foundation, Lily Jencks, Kū Kahakalau, Elpida Karaba, Gilly Karjevksy (Soft Agency), Alder Keleman-Saxena, Eva Kail, Luna Khirfan, Jan Körbes, Florian Kossak, Evangelos Kotsioris, Jürgen P. Kropp, Andreas Lang, Lesley Lokko, Emilo Luque, Fiona MacDonald, Madeleine Maaskant, Maria Mazzanti (Failed Architecture), Buhle Mathole, Philadelphia Makwakwa, Scott McAulay, Catalina Mejia Moreno, Kjersti Monsen, Kaisu Mustonen, Alex Nehmer, Elise Nguyễn, Makoto Okazaki, Yasmine Ostendorf, Deniz Ova, Federica Pessoto, Ben Pohl, Sinali Ratanlal, Lucia Rebolino, Amandus Samsøe Sattler, Anna Scheuerman, Deen Sharp, Civic Square, Lara Stöhlmacher (Ferm_arc collective), Rosario Talevi (Soft Agency), Iván Darío Vargas Roncancio, Rebekka Wandt, Sarah Wigglesworth, Johanna Wörner, Architecture Workroom Brussels.

Comments

We welcome comments on the website and its contents. Suggestions for other practices, corrections, encouragement, or general observations about the website are all welcome via email to mail [at] mould.earth

 

The research for this website was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

         

 

The website is published and managed by: 

Tatjana Schneider
Technische Universität Braunschweig
Institut für Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur und Stadt
Universitätsplatz 2
38106 Braunschweig
Germany

Contact person and legal representative:

Tatjana Schneider
Tel. +49 531 391 2347
Email: gtas [at] tu-braunschweig.de
Website: https://www.gtas-braunschweig.de

Responsible for content according to § 55 para. 2 RStV:

Tatjana Schneider
Universitätsplatz 2
38106 Braunschweig

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As a service provider, we are responsible for our own content on these pages in accordance with § 7 para.1 TMG under general laws. According to §§ 8 to 10 TMG, however, we as a service provider are not obligated to monitor transmitted or stored third-party information or to investigate circumstances that indicate illegal activity.

Obligations to remove or block the use of information under general laws remain unaffected by this. However, liability in this regard is only possible from the time of knowledge of a specific infringement. Upon notification of corresponding infringements, we will remove this content immediately.

Disclaimer:
We make every effort to ensure that the information on this website is always accurate and up to date. This website contains links to external websites. As these websites are not under our control, we cannot assume any liability for their content. The respective provider or operator is always responsible for the content of the linked pages. Upon notification of violations, we will remove such links immediately.

The website is not run as a commercial venture nor does it represent any commercial interest. 

Contents of the site only may be copied, shared or distributed strictly in accordance with the following Creative Commons License: 

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

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