The architecture profession tends to assume that there is always more to build. We need more infrastructure, more houses and more office space to accommodate economies and societies that are forever expanding. Greedy though it may be, this mindset is supported by the pervasive belief that a society’s success is best measured not in terms of humane measures such as the capacity for care and play but in economic terms such as market expansion. — Failed Architecture
Mark Minkjan of Failed Architecture interviews Phineas Harper and Maria Smith, two of the curators behind the Oslo Architecture Triennale 2019. The triennale's theme, Enough: The Architecture of Degrowth is focused "proposing alternatives to the unsustainable and unfair paradigm of growth."
Explaining the idea of "degrowth," Smith tells Minkjan, "Degrowth is about is stopping incentivizing extraction. At the moment we’re in a pursuit of economic growth at all costs because we need it in order to manage our private and public debt because that’s the way our current economic system is set up. And because we have to do that, that means that the system encourages consumption, resource extraction and other things that are stupid and environmentally and socially damaging."
Smith continues, "The idea of Degrowth is to create a system that allows many of the more socially and environmentally conscientious projects, that already exist all around us. It’s not like a different and crazy world. It’s just that they struggle to be commercially viable under our current economic system, but if we could free ourselves from this incessant, necessary growth then a lot of those really culturally rich projects could flourish."
I really love their framing of degrowth. the oslo architecture triennale this year gives me a lot of hope for our future while also reassuring me that biennales and triennales aren't just all PR. it's important not to get degrowth confused with a reactionary Luddite movement. if you design an economy to have no incentive for resource extraction outside of essentials or economic growth for no other reason than economic growth, you have a post-scarcity, post-precarity, and resolutely post-capitalist society. compare with nicolas korody's interview with alex williams and nick srnicek: https://archinect.com/features..., almost identical futures, coming at it from an accelerationist POV. accelerate into post-capitalism and risk environmental collapse from being too destructive, or for degrowth, decelerate into post-capitalism and risk environmental collapse from being too slow.
there's a massive amount of excess in our economy that can and should be trimmed- it's not about a complete return to nature or a massive population culling... it's sad that there's still a narrative that we have to kill billions of people to survive this, instead of looking at the socioeconomic structure in place that prevents modern agriculture from feeding our planet and lifestyles, diets, traditions, and habits that if cut, would mean so much less resource depletion with little to no effect on our livelihoods. also lol: https://www.wsj.com/articles/c... big coal is already feeling this.
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The medical term for unrestrained growth is cancer.
doesn’t make any sense. How does a growing population “de-grow”. Only a meteor or pandemic could achieve this. Of course a meteor would release for more carbon than all the cow farts and pickup trucks combined...de-growth sounds like another fake wish...a wish because it has no viable path to achieving it...
Redistribute.
Besides the undesirable consequences of that...it’s still finite at the end of the day...and eventually becomes rations before disappearing
There is also a finite number of humans.
maths....dwindling resources/growing population
Who redistributes...names please
Not who, what. You're going about this all wrong.
I really love their framing of degrowth. the oslo architecture triennale this year gives me a lot of hope for our future while also reassuring me that biennales and triennales aren't just all PR. it's important not to get degrowth confused with a reactionary Luddite movement. if you design an economy to have no incentive for resource extraction outside of essentials or economic growth for no other reason than economic growth, you have a post-scarcity, post-precarity, and resolutely post-capitalist society. compare with nicolas korody's interview with alex williams and nick srnicek: https://archinect.com/features..., almost identical futures, coming at it from an accelerationist POV. accelerate into post-capitalism and risk environmental collapse from being too destructive, or for degrowth, decelerate into post-capitalism and risk environmental collapse from being too slow.
there's a massive amount of excess in our economy that can and should be trimmed- it's not about a complete return to nature or a massive population culling... it's sad that there's still a narrative that we have to kill billions of people to survive this, instead of looking at the socioeconomic structure in place that prevents modern agriculture from feeding our planet and lifestyles, diets, traditions, and habits that if cut, would mean so much less resource depletion with little to no effect on our livelihoods. also lol: https://www.wsj.com/articles/c... big coal is already feeling this.
How
I like the idea of zero crime and everyone being nice. How.
1- Let's take one of the next big design/growth venture idea as an example- Blue Origin and their(his) space settlements. Bezos explicitly says our children will be at a disadvantage if growth (read: accumulation and use of resources) does not occur. This is the fundamental model for so many extractive (material and labor activities), to the point where it become implicit in our assumptions about development. More must equal better even if we know the resources are finite and despite claims that there are places where resources are virtually infinite (see Bezos in the Blue Origin presentation).
2-Once the question of who versus what comes into play, the dichotomies between material, labor, and extraction become evident. Most importantly "who" assumes a norm- who is coming for my opportunity to get more stuff (despite us knowing resources are finite). Instead of asking who, ask what or how - what are those finite resources and how will we ensure that they are accessible to everyone.
3- This is central to the exhibition. There are no finite solutions. In the library (a bank transformed into the national architecture museum) there were 80 plus proposals centered around this the question of how and what. Some were landscape based proposals about open space and burial rights and other were about material re-use or "new vernacular" method of making building materials that were locally and organically based (removing transportation and other logistics as a form of degrowth)- think seaweed insulation.
Other projects asked questions about how to reconcile rapid destabilized job decline in the form of local economies at a regional scale. not growth in the form of conventional job building, but responses to failed conventional approaches to economic development that are grounded in the place/resources and not money/market extraction.
4- The make a bag event was a subtle tell. Intend of making a new event bag, old event (exhibitions. etc) were collected and the public was allowed to mod the bags using silk screen, paint, and iron-on stickers. The point being, the event was made special by the individual and not the special symbol of the bag, along with the use of fewer resources.
5- No, there were no absolute answers, and it would be foolish to ask someone to come with a instant fool proof answer for such a wicked problem. It's also a strategy used to shut down the conversation- along with utopian tropes. But it's also foolish not to start the conversation. How and what needs to be shared and sustained, not extracted and exploited.
It’s not that complicated, most of it could be solved with basic economics. Reward good behavior, make bad behavior very costly. As it stands the system is upside down. Those who benefit from bad behavior are in charge, making this a political problem. Unless that changes we’re doomed.
No, it's not-sorta. T hose incredibly broad brush strokes don't respond to specific highlights in the thread. I was also using examples that can be clearly referenced and heard. I was also referencing the exhibition and opening activities that respond to the question of degrowth, and how it was addressed in a complex manner.
Great post. The whole obsession with growth is what’s pushing our environment to the breaking point, besides the deleterious effects on society as a whole. We should be focusing on sustainability paradigm which would maintain and even improve what we are leaving for future generations.
tHE zERO gROWTH MOVEMENT, STOP POPULATION GROWTH, STOP HAVING CHILDREN IS THE NEXT ONE THAT WILL GAIN IN POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE IT CURRENTLY DOES NOT ENJOY .
You should turn caps lock off when going from CAD to Archinect.
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