The following interview was published in Sawdust on the occasion of World Environment Day where I speak about the need to deconstruct our understandings of “nature” and “sustainability” to include social relations, people, and labor. To read the complete interview please visit https://sawdust.online/interviews/sustainable-architecture/
Spaces with Natural Habitat
“We need to deconstruct our notion of “sustainable architecture” because it is all around us. People have been building sustainability for centuries and they continue to do so all over. In-fact, informal settlements in Indian cities, those that we pejoratively call “slums”, are in-fact more sustainable than other buildings in the city. This is because they use materials that have been thrown away by us like old bricks, cement roofs, pipes, etc. By saying this, I do not mean to romanticize informal settlements and unequal structural conditions under which people live their lives. Rather, I want to destabilize our understanding of “sustainable architecture”, says Ar. Siddharth Menon, Urban Geographer, Ph.D Student – Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison
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