While politics, geography, and many other disciplines have begun to acknowledge the problematic materiality of our society, architecture, planning, urban design, and civil engineering have kept these critical matters at bay, guarded by a rhetoric of aesthetics, progress and impartiality.
Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, ‘The Devil Is in the Details’, Non-Extractive Architecrture Vol. 1
In this course we will investigate the built environment and the tools that designed it, aiming to dissect them in order to make visible the role that extractive processes and their effects have on the planet. Not only do we need to investigate buildings and their materialities, but also the design tools involved in the architectural process. All of our tools rely on some form of extraction that often seems to go unnoticed yet must be taken into account when we think about the impact of our profession. As a starting point, we will look closely at the photographic process in relation to the materials that are extracted from the earth to support it, and which contribute to the earth’s depletion.
Cloud seeding is a form of weather manipulation that uses the same materials that are used in the photographic process.