Radically-Open Participatory Practice in the Face of the Climate Emergency

The climate emergency has a number of implications for ways of thinking about architectural production. One of these is the removal of any imagined separation between human subjects and objectified natures. In place of this dichotomy, we are instead confronted with the need to radically rethink architectural production based on ‘a firm conviction that we need each other’s sensibilities’, including those of nonhumans. In the context of this conference on participatory design, and as part of our wider research project Architecture after Architecture, we are interested in what form these future-oriented forms of practice might take.

In this paper, we will discuss ways in which radically-open participatory practice can contribute to more equitable, diverse and inclusive forms of world-making, in the specific context of post-growth or degrowth rural communities. We begin with a definition of the Stoic term ‘oikeiôsis’. In contrast to ‘oikos’ (generally cited as the root of the word ‘ecology’), which describes home as something closed and static, ‘oikeiôsis’ depicts selves and lives as collaborative groupings or collective becomings that move together as they develop. To illustrate this dynamic concept of habitat, we will draw on an extensive database of projects that suggest alternative ways of producing space that can part of addressing climate change, and which are constituted by a variety of practices.

Relating examples of existing practice to possible future scenarios, we will foreground an ecosystemic approach to habitat maintenance that highlights interdependencies among living things. Through specific exemplary cases, we call for greater appreciation of diverse livelihood practices engaged in by various interrelated communities. Ultimately, we seek to contribute to the ongoing dialogue for post-capitalist production, and to discuss how other worlds are made.