For sustainable architecture

In Build with whom remains: what resources to get out of extractivism ?, Philippe Simay, lecturer in philosophy at the National School of Architecture of Paris-Belleville, delivers an ecological criticism of extractivism in architecture, which will not fail to shake up a number of practitioners. The book follows the publication with Clara Simay de The Rail farm: for an ecological and united city Posted in 2022, report of an architectural project of social housing and urban farm which is characterized by its attention paid to human and non -human living, as to the social and ecological implications of the act of building.

By mobilizing the great thinkers of ecological humanities in the same way as gray literature and its figures on the ecological impact of the construction sector, the author maintains that “ Trapped in extractivism, architecture is what makes the world properly uninhabitable by developing effectively, but not without elegance a new art of digging its grave ». (p. 38). Consequently, he invites architects to rethink their relationship to the material resource essential to their action, and “ do nothing anymore ».

Rabougria architecture in ecological denial

The author deplores a practice of architecture partly accomplice of its impoverishment, namely its gradual reduction to the only spatial design. Due to more restrictive constructive standards, the subject of carbon, even biodiversity is, it is true, become a must of contemporary architecture. But the latter is still part of a “ Production architecture, based on new construction, that is to say the systematic destruction of the existing and the production of waste (P. 22). In his work, Ph. Simay carries the less focal length on the avoidable demolition of existing buildings, but on the destruction of ecological ecosystems and the systems of social domination essential for the extraction of the commonly used building materials. For him, in the absence of a real consideration of the social and ecological implications of the act of building, and without refusal of extractivism, no real ecological architecture is possible.

Architects must urgently seize the subject of conditions as of the consequences of his activity, except to become “ denunivoresdevourrs of the persistent planet in denial (P. 37). Norman Foster’s exhibition in 2023 at the Center Pompidou in Paris, illustrating in the wonder this denial where an airport architect and air -conditioned office towers, built in part in countries with working conditions close to modern slavery, dares to claim a “ Sustainable ecological approach ».

For a fair use of the resource

This extractivism is based on the ideological foundations which are at the origin of the current ecological crisis, namely the fact that we human we feel owners of nature and therefore in the right to exploit it. This conception of nature, recent on the scale of human history and culturally unique to the West, to the point that Baptiste Morizot describes it as “ Modern provincialism “, Is found in the concept of natural resources.

P. Simay issues a vehement criticism of the term natural resources that should be abandoned, because it highlights our inability to think of the world other than in a logic of exploitation. There is no natural resource, because to paraphrase Simone de Beauvoir, we are not born resources, we become. The coal thus becomes a resource only by the capital grasp. It is therefore necessary “ have a fairer use of resources that are building materials, realizing that these are resources shared with other living ». (p. 64). We are, in fact, dependent on these living, whose weaving of life makes our world habitable.

Reuse as a resistance tactics

The proposal is therefore to wean the architecture of extractivism by mobilizing the already extracted resources, which represent a mass equal to all terrestrial biomass. The latter are no longer alive, in the sense that they no longer play a function in a biote.

P. Simay proposes to make re -use again and reuse the norm and not the exception of an architecture that respects environments. Again, because this practice once constituted the norm, as illustrated by the Concorde bridge in Paris, built from stones from the Bastille. This mobilization of “ already available At the preference of pH. Simay on the biosourcé, like wood which can appear virtuous, because storing carbon, but is often extracted and treated with a lot of carbon and chemistry reinforcement. It allows “ Rethinking architecture less as a projection of the mind in an inert matter than a process of creation or know-how, forces and materials combine. »(P. 85)

But the author warns us before the extractivist imagination which currently dominates the circular economy, as illustrated by the term “ urban mine ». He fears a recovery by the capitalist system of this alternative, which would lack attention to matter, and on the contrary, would consider it as a material to extract and transform into a product for the purpose of creating economic value.

Conversely, he offers to reuse a tactical resistance to the strategy Majors of Construction. Mobilizing these two terms in the sense of Michel de Certeau, he believes that re -use as a tactic could “ Failing to (…) to free us completely from the system, (allow) to loosen the corset it imposes on us, to cleverly exploit the constraints it makes on us, to free ourselves from the grip of certain images and received ideas like those circulating around “resources to be exploited” (P. 88-89). It thus makes the link between the capacity of an innovation to deploy massively and the growing grip of capitalism on all components of life, and refuses to inscribe re -use in this same deleterious logic.

In conclusion, P. Simay affirms that between the different approaches which found the ecological approaches of architecture – carbon, taking into account the climate or the living, permaculture or bioregionalism – reuse has the advantage of obliging us to slow down and work to the rhythm of the glaneuses – to offer the time to rethink the act of building and thus “ Find our right place in the world of living (P. 105).

Jostle or switch

The test is remarkable accuracy, and it is difficult not to share the analysis that is based on two legs, philosophical and factual. It constitutes an interesting point of entry for the actors of the urban who want to understand the implications of ecological humanities in their practices, as for readers of philosophy eager to see their consequences in the art of building our habitat. Articulating the figures and observations on the ecological crisis, the examples of the aberrations of current architecture and its stars, the philosophical underlying of this situation, just like the doors and paths allowing to extricate themselves, the essay will leave no indifferent practitioner. The conclusion in the form of a call also marks a welcome form of operationality in this type of literature.

The subject undoubtedly shakes up, as conventional practice is the antipodes of the recommendations it brings. The question we will ask in these last lines is whether it could not have worked more strongly on a rocking of builders and constraints in which they evolve. Here we would like to raise three points: the question of the scale of action, the centrality of the architect and the question of urgency.

The refusal to largely and quickly deploy the alternative solutions mentioned in the face of the risk of capitalist recovery echoes a certain return of vernacular architecture and a factory of the incremental city, the two valuing slowness and small scale. But faced with the social and ecological challenges of our cities, is this strategy of small steps up ? The urban planner Jean-Louis SUBINEAU thus speaks of an ambient discourse on town planning and architecture which passes too quickly from the metathe ecological crisis, at microphonethe exemplary architectural project, without worrying about the macrothe city or the agglomeration. Yet the challenges of social justice, changes in lifestyle and even biodiversity are largely to be resolved on this scale. The result is the impression for the reader that the invitation welcome to get the architecture out of its narrow spatial design perimeter to fully take an interest in the social and ecological implications of his work stops in the middle of the path. He seems to invite to stay on an apprehendable project scale, when we also need an architectural and ecological thought on this more urban scale.

This pitfall is also explained by the central role entrusted to the architect to the detriment of other actors in the city, such as the State and local communities, developers, urban planners, design offices and programming, as well as investors and inhabitants. Today, the architect intervenes in a regulatory, programmatic and economic context, manufactured by others, and with highly reduced room for maneuver. The training of architects often does not allow them to properly grasp the dynamics at work with their partners and contracting authorities. The objective of “ bond Perhaps will be better served by a call including these other actors, at the risk of seeing virtuous architects flourished against a bundle of misunderstood constraints.

Finally, the subject is marked by a form of refusal of the urgency, which is reflected in particular by this opposition to the rapid dissemination of alternatives. P. Simay questions: “ Why should ecological approaches systematically be reproducible and large-scale extensible to become legitimate ? (P. 90). For those who often try awkwardly to act for the ecological transformation of the city factory, this produces a certain discomfort. This form of refusal, certainly provisional, of the emergency may give the impression that part of the philosophical avant-garde of ecology considers the battle as already lost ; And would now be limited to bringing out islets of resistance capable of constituting the basics of a reconstruction according to the climate battle. The question that emerges is: let us have the time necessary for such radicality necessarily (and voluntarily ?) ?