‘Building with What Remains. What resources for moving beyond extractivism?’
As part of the Dwelling in the Anthropocene Lecture Series
Philippe Simay (Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’architecture de Paris-Belleville)
Our ways of building and developing no longer guarantee viable living conditions. While the emphasis today is placed on the process of planetary urbanization, less attention is paid to the materials that make up our built environment. Yet 95% of these materials are non-renewable. Concrete, glass, steel, and plastic are thus presented as neutral materials. However, their production relies on extractivist logics that contribute to environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, and the worsening of socio-ecological inequalities.
How can we renew our material culture and break with these harmful extractivist practices? Drawing on the philosophies of ecology, this lecture proposes to develop an ethical and political approach to material resources in order to rethink the conditions under which our built environment is produced. In this respect, it advances a radical hypothesis: to limit the act of building to the use of materials that have already been produced, by considering the existing material stock as the primary resource for future development.
Such a perspective invites us to redefine the moral economy of our construction and dwelling practices in pursuit of a more just material ecosystem, compatible with maintaining viable living conditions on Earth.
