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Architecture In the Anthropocene Essays on Reflective Resistances II

Editor Elizabeth B Hatz

KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Architecture In The Anthropocene Essays on Reﬂective Resistances II

Introduction

by Elizabeth B Hatz

While We Forgot What if time collapsed, and broke our speed to a point where we would slowly walk our way through the everyday, without an eye on mobile phones or clocks? Would that ever be possible? Will it happen anyway, suddenly, when we least of all expect it, when the power is cut and the planned replacements haven’t really worked out? Things don’t always work out. Some people do not have mobile phones. We have forgotten this. What then, when we remember? Do they count? Will they help us, as we don’t anymore know how to act without them? While we forgot that all we need is think diﬀerently, look elsewhere, act in other ways. While we forgot we’ve known for 50 years we needed change our ways of living. While we forgot we do not have to turn the switch, as long as there is daylight. While we forgot so much, earth was all the time transforming. Painfully. 100 million products helped us forget, ﬂickering lights, agendas, adverts. The way things are. There are questions – if we allow them time to evolve; answers might come from the least expected directions. Wittgenstein’s words - that humanity’s grandeur in the future may lie, not in what it accomplishes, but in what it refrains from accomplishing – would still stir up indignation and opposition. YET. Our mode of living has proven impossible to sustain. Who will pull the break? Are we at all capable of helping ourselves out of oblivion? Do we really even want to try?

What does it mean for architecture - in the everyday work and act - not just for the polished rhetoric? Can the celebration of architecture as culture offer knowledge and help create the time gap needed for changing ways of seeing? Can reading, observing, thinking, drawing and understanding oppose business-as-usual, so inventive thoughts and acts are given a chance? Care and repair instead of replacing and building new? Can architecture embrace its double origin, the rural and the urban, to allow nature to re-enter as an active partner? Can we even image that the human species is not the crown of creation, the center of the world, entitled to use it for its own ends? Can we at all see the cultures that consider this differently? While we forgot we have hands to care, eyes to look and hearts to open to a world, so much more physical than we were ready to admit…that world changed in no time at all. We were so busy forgetting that we do not have all the answers. We forgot the deepest may be the wonder in front of what is possibly more important than us. Other cultures have been different. But we forgot.

Architecture In The Anthropocene Essays on Reflective Resistances II As a second attempt, after Architecture Beyond The Anthropocene, already available on-line, this book is presenting a new set of reflections in a time at a pivot point. 62 young architects to be, are facing their own future and roles in a world experiencing massive changes on all levels: climatic, economic, political, cultural, social. The confusions, the wonderings, the hopes, and maybe above all, the questions, amass. To navigate in this unknown and volatile territory, a series of speculating lectures on architecture’s varying foundations and possible creative paths were offered, along with a list of books, presented at the end of this book. Lectures by Elizabeth B Hatz: Prime Permanence II: architecture’s resistance to time as a durability of material presence and artefact (Rossi), ancient cultures before anthropocentrism, architecture beyond use and the myth of progress (G H von Wright). Black Backsides II: cultural back-sides and resistances, transition points (Anne Carson, “The Economy of the Unlost”), black insights (Rachel Carson), delaying obsessions, obduracy, fear of darkness etc. Notes on Nothing II: John Cage, Paul Valéry, elements of resistance, the jump into void as accessing new knowledge (Marci Cavalcante “Lovtal till Intet” essays on philosophical hermeneutics), un-building, “nothing” as creative proposition. Lightening Lights II: economy of means, lost architectural know-how, saving by knowing, understanding light and darkness and their fundamental implications in architecture, observation as architectural tool, the love for architecture as culture (“The Human Condition”, Hannah Arendt) Ghost Gardens II: non-urban origins of architecture, the idea of garden, nature hitting back, Fluxus, Bo Bardi, urban farming, critiques of the anthropocentric bias (Clive Hamilton, Niell MacGregor, Roy Scanton) etc.

Ambivalent Alterations II: possible architectural stands in face of climate change, alteration as creative methods (Fred Scott), challenges in the interpretation of the existing (Ruskin), use / re-use, collapse of time. Tending Tendencies II: beginning of the era of CARE?, revealing the tyranny of newness (A Caruso), obliteration of authorship, the obsolete strive for originality, creative opportunity in tending (Fred Scott), victory of knowledge over object (1300 years of Ise Jingu temple rebuilding).

With just a hope to open for thoughts, this book wishes to inspire more reading, observing and pondering. Elizabeth Bonde Hatz

Texts by Adam Holm Agathe Guyard Alexander Hallberg Alexis José Rodríguez Pérez Amanda Hjälmeby Anna Malin Grønsberg Anton Andreev Arif Reza Bingrong Huo Boyd Hellier Knox Cecilia Tibald Johansson Christoph Leitner David Shanks Dimitri Kasparian Edoardo La Cava Emelie Ahlqvist Erik Sandsten Erik Schönning Fang Beichen Feng Yang Fredrik Wadensten Frida Torstensson Gabriel Blomberg Hagob Manoukian Hongyu Wan Ingrid Westermark Isak Boardman Jakob James Lalor Jakob Lif Jeﬀ Ranara Joel Ejeby Julius Puttkammer Kerim Comaga Leopold Reich Lina Wittfoht Linnea Lowden Louise Björkander Lukas Lyttkens Magdalena Bjerkfors Mariona Figuera i Utges Martin Lindfors Martin Piazzolla Martin Thunberg Martino Montresor Melchior Dechancé Nadja Qtet Nastaran Ravadgar Nikola Postran Niklas Dierks Nozomu Tamushi Pamela Davila Robledo Paulina Aydin Raphael Mertin Roderik Crafoord Rosanna Rydholm Samuel Oskarsson Sijia Peng Siri Fritzon Tess Tressler Thomas Donoghue Toby Richardson Victor Johansson

Growing Pains:

Reflections on ”The limits to growth” As ecological disaster approaches and we slowly realise where we are, a psychological shift is emerging. Reactions to the imminent collapse often fall in one of the stages of mourning - some are in shock, some in complete denial, others already resigned to fate. The Great Grief has started to envelop our society. This is a significant shift, and it feels sudden, but it ́s been coming for a long time. When something large and slow gains momentum the force of its acceleration can be surprising. This unexpectedness is key in The limits to growth, a 1972 report describing a computer model simulating the effect of human activity on the world system. Ridiculed and forgotten for many years, it has been partially redeemed due to its proven accuracy. Primarily, it describes our inherent inability to deal with exponential growth and how this shortcoming leads to chaos. The storybook example is the creator of chess presenting his invention to the king. Delighted, the ruler offers a reward. The game designer asks for a single grain of rice to be put on the first square of the board. Two grains on the second. Four on the third, and so forth, doubling every square. Believing this to be a modest request, the king accepts without second thought, not realising the amount of rice on the 64th square will weigh more than 200 billion metric tonnes. Today we face a similar problem. We live in a world of fixed size but are dependent on perpetual growth to prevent unemployment and provide pensions. At 2% yearly growth, the economy doubles in 35 years. For it to double again, only 12.5 years is required. Then 6 years, 3 and so forth. Now apply this to industrialisation, pollution, consumption and land available for food production, thusly:

This is the rice piling up on the board. Our immediate future, simulated almost 50 years ago, and so far proving accurate. When one of the variables reach a certain point it will trigger a collapse in the other ones. The key takeaway is the dynamics, not which variable who will be the trigger. If one would be reduced to a sustainable level, another will take its place. For example, let ́s assume we could end pollution overnight. This would lead to continued production which would, in turn, increase the population until we overshoot. We run out of fertile land quicker than we can control, the population dwindles and we enter a death spiral. If we double the amount of food we can produce we delay the collapse with one or two years, after which another doubling is required, now at a much higher cost. Any technological innovation or change in just one of the key variables is irrelevant since it doesn ́t adress the underlying problem - exponential growth in a finite world. Ultimately, the problems are not material but political and social. Every functioning system has its checks and balances. If a herd of deer multiply and consume excessive amounts of grass, the ensuing food shortage will increase the death rate, giving the grass a chance to grow back. This keeps the system relatively stable. Similar balances exist in global economics, an important difference being that the effects are delayed. When humans overshoot, it will take decades before we feel it, during which we have time to cause exponential amounts of damage. Also, there is nowhere to run. The solution is to understand the world as one system, seeing the key variables as part of a finite whole and actively cap them. A radical shift in economic policy, unpleasant to some, but preferable to swift uncontrollable collapse. At the time of the books release, the changes needed would have been significant but not tremendous. This is no longer the case and it gets harder by the day. The population is thankfully starting to plateau but the fundamental problem is not adressed. If we don ́t, we vill be unable to prevent ecological collapse by the middle of the century. So what can a westerner do? We could definitely insulate our buildings, support strong progressive governments and invest in clean energy, especially in poor countries. But just as often it ́s about what we can not do, like drive, fly, eat industrial meat and multiply. Capitalism, and possibly even democracy, is not built for this, being systems designed for expansion. We need a distribution machine that handles poverty and unemployment while accepting equilibirum in growth, meaning decreased physical production and more idle time. A first step could simply be four day workweek. Can a market economy allow this or is the

dystopian power of an authoritarian government required? As a growing immature civilisation we have usually seen limitations as something purely external, a challenge to overcome, enhanced by the relative size of the world compared to the small and fragile human. What happens when we, like when facing the mortality of a parent, realise the world is suddenly the small one? Do we embrace adulthood and adhere to its rules of restraint and responsibility? Or will we only learn through death?

Inspiration : The limits to growth, Meadows et al, 1972 Limits to growth: the 30 year update, Meadows et al, 2002 2052: A global forecast for the next forty yeats, Randers, 2013

Adam Holm