Premises of Future Architectures

a talk by MOULD

(represented by: Anthony Powis, Becca Voelcker, Jeremy Till)

at the Digital Culture Research Centre, UWE, 14 July 2021 (online)

What happens to architecture after the climate emergency undoes its foundational assumptions of growth, extraction, and progress? The current moment demands a thorough reconsideration of our collective ways of being in the world. This talk will introduce a series of premises that inform the ongoing research project Architecture after Architecture, led by Jeremy Till and Tatjana Schneider. Speaking on behalf of our newly formed collective MOULD, we will introduce three disruptions/complications/extensions to the term ‘agency’ that guide our thinking in this project. Each disruption constitutes a conceptual shift brought about by the climate emergency and demands new methodologies for spatial practice. First, the idea of scarcity presents immediate challenges to a profession deeply entwined with the consumption of material resources. Second, instability demands modes of engagement with people and place within relational structures rather than fixed models of subjectivity and being. Third, speculation proposes a form of embodied and practiced thinking that draws from multiple epistemologies to cultivate a radically inclusive model of futurity. We will conclude the talk by proposing possible tenets of future architecture, including provisionality, and an ethics of care.