Acting on the hollow world

Given the damage and disorder produced by the spread of human settlements across the environment since the Industrial Revolution, there is a great temptation for architects to stop everything. To stop building would be an act of resistance. However, the last two centuries have seen so much construction away from the living world, have produced so many spaces against and hollowed out of the world, that the world has become vulnerable. Our idea here is that it is precisely these hollow existing spaces that we now need to work on. Agricultural systems, rivers, canals, conurbations, cities, villages, infrastructures, apartment blocks, houses, are in fact the new materials for a profound process of reassessment and renewal, one that is already underway but needs to be pursued with greater intensity. It is by operations on anthropised spaces, at all scales, with the aim of forming lasting bonds with the living world, that it will be possible to reconnect human settlements with the world. The idea is that what is associated today with the anthropic can be fully adapted to accommodate the otherness of the living world. We need the courage to propose projects that radically alter our territories and relations to the world. Let us move beyond short-termist visions that do no more than alleviate the emergency. Let’s not be held back by feasibilities and administrative pitfalls – let us aspire to living cities that will endure into a far-off future.