Looking to reformulate the relationship between humans, territories, and globalization, “Ecologies for Other Architectures” gathered for two days in Madrid emerging international architects to propose narratives on urban environments and their undergoing changes. Curated by Itinerant Office within the network of New Generations, the event featured 7 scenarios, 7 models, 7 narratives on nature, technology, bodies, material transformation, soil, participation, and (no) humans. The event employed recycled material and a fast-mounting strategy to guarantee zero impact.
The seven proposals delivered by Aparicio/eeraerts (BE), Breathe Earth Collective (AT), HPO (IT), Lucia Tahan (UK), Pareid, Studio Wild (NL), Takk Architecture (ES) featured interdisciplinary design combined research studio, technology, and media. Delving into cities and territories as complex organisms subject to trauma and violence- and sometimes unpredictable evolution- the installations reconfigured the relationships humans establish with these environments to develop a common idea of planetarity.
Material Transformation: soil cycles, by Aparicio/eeraerts invited to visualize and interrelate soil material with tradition and architecture, as well as the role earth’s natural cycles play in the ongoing climate crisis. The piece narrated fragments of the science behind climate change through a more personal visual approach and methodology, opening different perspectives and questions about the Anthropocene and old traditions of appropriating the earth.
With Crowd Foresting, Breathe Earth Collective aimed to transform the city into a place that generates more oxygen and energy than it consumes. Visitors were invited to take small tree saplings with them for free, plant them somewhere in the city, and care about them for a minimum of 10 years.
Lucia Tahan critically presented in Metaverse Syntax: An Ecology of Virtual Worlds, an emerging formal language of a Metaverse: will its language be as loud and disjointed as today’s internet? Through an AR filter, the elements of a pillar were augmented and visible in virtual space, filling the room with their loud, attention-seeking presence.
In today’s internet, powerful forces have emerged in the form of new media. How will these translate into a 3D world and superimpose themselves upon urban and living spaces? - Lucia Taha, architect
HPO and La Stanza (IT) proposed creating bonds with other international architectural workers by implementing an audiovisual vocabulary of building and designing acts that can put the body and the hand of the architects as the main element of a digital, performative narration. Labour Rituals was a performative proposal about the human body involving the other humans working on the exhibition.
Similarly, with Decommissioning Gamified: Variations of a Primitive Hut, Pareid encouraged to rethink how materials are sourced and reconfigured into the design. A shelter hosting a video game allowed visitors to create interpretations and variations of the hut using the same parts kit.
In terms of the natural environment, GP Shelter by Takk Architecture consisted of a refuge for invasive species, aiming to incorporate new visions into local ecosystems, which has naturalized a discussion about our relationships with non-humans in Madrid’s society.
Finally, Studio Wild was invited to take a critical position regarding land use and reevaluate alternative ways of agricultural, water management, and social and economic structures that can manage our soil. Desert Soil’s installation consisted of found objects from deserted parts of the Spanish countryside. It represented the fragility of the ecosystems of some areas in southern Europe, which are suffering from the phenomenon of desertification.
New Generations has positioned itself as one of the most active independent organizations in Europe involved in the analysis, research, and development of activities for and by emerging architects. Aside from Ecologies for Other Architectures run during the Fall, the platform has also organized The Young European Architecture Festival (YEAH!). Taking place in April 2022 at the Kulturfabrick, a non-profit cultural center in Luxembourg, the event highlighted unestablished European practices, their ideas, visions, and experiences.
