Fellows seminar - Habitability: a model for designing architecture in the Anthropocene era

Image - Pixabay

By Mickaël Labbé, 2021 Fellow

All ecological changes of anthropogenic origin, known as the Anthropocene, call into question the very habitability of the Earth. The fundamental question the current and future climate regime raises is what will happen if, as already seems certain, all or part of the Earth in effect becomes uninhabitable? As we know, this questioning of habitability itself is a direct result of the way we occupy the planet, ever since the organisational structures and ideological schemes that are part of modern Western capitalist societies extended around the globe. The way we inhabit the Earth therefore becomes an impasse, as it has the precise consequence of making it uninhabitable.

Urbanisation, and the artificialisation that accompanies it, are directly implicated in this situation, especially when we consider that these phenomena are global and growing, and are active at all levels of territories. This is why, at a time when the majority of human beings are now urban dwellers, the Anthropocene is forcing construction disciplines to radically rethink their fundamental concepts and models, their constituent elements, their vocabulary and the way in which they are articulated.

The aim of our research project is to explore the full scope of the question of habitability from the perspective of architectural and urban philosophy. While looking back to the philosophical origins of the notion, we will also seek to highlight - from an ecological viewpoint - some of its effects on the way we think about and practise architecture today.

• More information on Mickaël Labbé and his USIAS project: Beyond city and nature: architecture, city and nature in the Anthropocene.