An overview of Anthropocene in Architecture

Have we indelibly transformed the planet? This apparent problem has triggered a new battle with staggering complexity between geologists and environmentalists, as mentioned by Joseph Stromberg in the Smithsonian magazine. Largely unaware, we are living our consequences. Human behavior has a significant impact on Earth’s geological condition. This global change retrospectively depicts a string of fires leading to a substantial explosion due to exploitation. This existential distress of the environmental change caused by human activities is the Anthropocene age in the living. This new epoch of geological time is a significant, long-lasting, and potentially irreversible effect, extended to the point reflected in the rock strata. Nature is a strong force on our planet. While it can create and mold us, it also possesses the power to destroy us. The precariousness of the former climatic conditions does not diminish human activity’s effects on the Anthropocene. 

Around the late twentieth century, the shift from the industrial to the technological age allowed humanity to grow faster and farther than anyone imagined. We created technology to produce high-yielding cops, control your environment, invent flights, space exploration, television, the computer, and many similar specialized developments. Less obvious advances include things taken for granted – the result and impact of these advancements: their effect on nature, their relationship with humans, and the change in architecture due to it. Ozone layer depletion, global warming from fossil fuels, co2 emissions, melting ice caps and rising sea levels, food and water wastage, loss of biodiversity, deforestation, air and plastic pollution, agricultural land malpractices, overfishing, etc. are some significant concerns exhausting the natural being on Earth.

Anthropocene in Architecture

The term “context” falsely being used by architects and designers has lost its essence, as said in the conversation by Francois Roche with Etienne Turpin. It has been manipulated to fit the narrative since we “think” we dominate nature. The poorly conceived design has visibly divided our urban spaces from our native environment, seemingly adding to our recent ability to look at nature in isolation from us. This separation of nature and culture results adversely in the architecture and construction sector, socially, politically, and majorly in the environment. Nearly half of global crude materials are used for construction, and about 40% -50% of Earth’s land surface is cultivated, recognizing agriculture as the leading cause of the Anthropocene. The built environment and infrastructure produce one-third of greenhouse gas emissions. Strengthening our bond with nature has become a demanding design challenge that not only architects and urban designers but every individual has to address by responsibly delivering to reverse and minimize the effects of this Anthropocene era.  

There has been a dispute in the understanding and acceptance of Anthropocene and its relative design practice concerning the cultural theories, which with the changing time, have been evolving, giving rise to modern views of this concept. Architects are engaged with the issue by exploring and innovating creative techniques to attain a sustainable design. Architectural history has battled to produce approaches that respond to the repercussions of our new condition. Nature has become an ornamentation in architecture, naming it sustainable and green architecture. Merely decorating the façades with greens and landscaping on site doesn’t fabricate it to be “nature friendly.” This domestication of nature is, in turn, starting to domesticate us. Not simply rushing to conclusions to create the final product but recognizing the effects and analyzing its circumstances on the natural, social and political environment depicts responsible design. A theory reduces the strain on the environment and increases our ability to foresee. 

Challenges of the future

Challenged with ominous predictions of the future, the longing for designers is to create visionary schemes to revolutionize and transform the fabric of built structures. Indeed, pessimists’ laments offer little in design and consumption creativity. Mitigating the overconsumption of natural resources and consciously opting for sustainable choices come to the forefront of design principles. Regulating construction by environmental needs to follow new policies of adaptation is vital. 

Object-oriented ontology is a Heidegger-influenced idea of thought that refuses the privileging of human existence over the existence of nonhuman objects. Object-oriented ontology maintains that objects exist independently of human perception and are not ontologically exhausted by their relations with humans or other entities. Where architecture merges with art and, consequently, design with nature, the underlying seams and integrated components that comprise the aspects of the entire whole, thus holding things in place, may turn out to be too visionary. This means that attention to functional details begins to move outside the dominant idea of architecture rather than being integrated with it. Thus, building with nature instead of over and against it let its way to thoughtfully introducing technological advancements. This is not a call to restrain our creativity but to make it beautiful. We can start by considering the relationship of the parts to the whole and how our buildings can sustain the people within them and the Earth upon which they stand. Understanding the micro nature is another whole chapter within itself. The exploration of new modes of simulation and production in architecture, as well as enhancements in the field of biotechnology, synthetic biology, engineering, and associated sciences, are leading toward an ever-increasing multidisciplinary approach to environmental design. This is living Architecture to define.

Architecture, as a mere instance of the form of the built environment, holds the power and responsibility of expressing and helping reverse the most crucial environmental calamity.

References : 

1. As environmental catastrophe unfolds, we need architecture that is more than just green by Darran Anderson. Darran Anderson: “We need architecture that is more than just green.”

1. What is the Anthropocene, and why does it matter? By Katie Pavid https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-the-anthropocene.html

1. Architecture of the Anthropocene, Part 1 – Nicholas KorodyBy Nicholas Korody https://archinect.com/features/article/109656462/architecture-of-the-anthropocene-part-1

1. Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology at the End of the World (Minneapolis: U of Minneapolis Press, 2013), (Introduction, Viscosity, PDF).
2. Matters of Fabulation: On the Construction of Realities in the Anthropocene, François Roche in Conversation with Etienne Turpin, Architecture in the Anthropocene Encounters Among Design, Deep Time, Science and Philosophy Edited by Etienne Turpin (2014: Open Humanities Press), 197- 209. Selection, Computational Ecologies: Design in the Anthropocene (ACADIA 2015)
3. Inhabiting the Anthropocene – by PHILIPPE CHIAMBARETTA https://www.pca-stream.com/en/articles/inhabiting-the-anthropocene-13