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Palm oil accounts for over a third of the vegetable oil produced worldwide but its production and use is at the centre of a two decades long controversy. On one hand, NGOs hold palm oil industry responsible for both degradation of the environment, increasing poverty of indigenous people, and attacks on human rights. On the other hand, independent scientists argue that the development of oil palm plantations can contribute to meeting the food needs of a growing global population, and to a decline in rural poverty.

When in 2017, the Colombian-Congolese company Strategos bought the land and the buildings of Lusanga, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the surrounding palm oil plantation, the population of this historical site for palm oil extraction in the country was hoping to revive a long lost, idealized past. Lusanga was formerly known as Leverville, named after Lord Lever, the British tycoon who had acquired concessions in 1911, in the then Belgian Congo. The villas built for the European managers, with their tropical modernist architecture plunged in the lush vegetation, hint at a seemingly glorious past.

The semi-abandoned surrounding plantations and the rows of workers houses inhabited by an impoverished and unemployed population remind us of a violent past of labor exploitation and environmental depletion.
The failure and abandonment of Leverville which was once meant to be the crown jewel of the five plantation complexes established in the Congo basin, the symbolism of its radially arranged avenues, now barely legible through the overgrown weeds, tells us the story of how poor knowledge of environmental, human and technical factors crushed the ambitions of a giant of global capitalism. The violent conflicts that have broken out in 2015 and 2019 in the Boteka and Lokutu company towns, two other former Lever’s palm oil concessions testify of the long-term effects of natural resource extraction in the Central African forest.

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The project originates from the need to illuminate dissident domesticities while challenging normative interpretations within architectural historiography. Its objective is to investigate the Casa Samambaia (Petrópolis, RJ, Brazil), the residence where self-taught architect and urbanist Lota de Macedo Soares and American poet Elizabeth Bishop lived. This setting served as the backdrop for the affectionate relationship that blossomed between them. Noteworthy for being Brazil's pioneering metal construction dating back to the 1950s, the Casa Samambaia's combination of architectural tectonics and spatial organization earned its architect, Brazilian Sérgio Bernardes, an award at the II São Paulo Biennial, with a jury including luminaries such as Alvar Aalto and Walter Gropius. However, the primary focus lies in comprehending how both the house and the inhabitants' customs defy bourgeois heteronormativity. The residence becomes a space of subjectivity and affirmation for the two women who diverged from conventional paths during the 1950s. The research process involved analyzing primary sources, particularly letters penned by Elizabeth Bishop to her friends. These letters offer insight into the relationship shared between the two women, delving into their daily lives and the intricate connections formed within and through the Casa Samambaia. Additionally, the architectural project itself is scrutinized as a biographical testament of Lota, acknowledging her substantial contribution to both its conception and construction. The tectonics of the house, as well as its spatial organization, are studied in harmony with the evolved domestic habits and their symbolic connotations. This alignment underscores their affirmation of dissidence against bourgeois heteronormativity. This research endeavors to deepen our comprehension of the nexus between gender, sexuality, and architecture, emphasizing the vital role of investigating often-overlooked narratives within traditional historiography. 

Carried out in conjunction with the City of Paris's waste management services, the Points Noirs study maps and analyses for the first time the recurring anomalies of cleanliness and illegal dumping sites in Paris. This research has enabled us to identify and classify 1,412 "black spots" spread across all the arrondissements of Paris. They reflect daily misuse as much as they reveal micro-spaces: nooks, crannies, urban or architectural incongruities, gables, blind walls...
Talking about black spots, showing them, evoking their consequences, the problems they raise and their history, is also a way of getting everyone to take an interest in the phenomenon and adapt their urban practices. There are several ways of describing black spots, since they are represented as much by their content as by their container, as much by the bulky object as by the urban form that accommodates it. These areas account for over 32% of the bulky items collected each year by our services, i.e. 34,596.40 tonnes of illegal dumping. The solution to the problem lies mainly in revealing these places, making visible what is invisible. Describing, quantifying and measuring these black spots means talking about the city and its metabolism. Over and above the census, the study focuses on specific cases, selected for their representativeness, their form, their administrative status or because local residents have shown an interest in them. "Points Noirs" proposes a new cartography of Paris through the prism of waste and through the eye of the person who criss-crosses the city on a daily basis to reveal these "crumbs of land" and define their potential for evolution.
In this talk we will discuss the results of this project and propose the adaptability of this research method in other places in France, and abroad. The relationship between the maintenance of the city, the people that maintain and the city itself. Mapping in collaboration with people who are not architects but have strong links to the urban blueprint through their personal practices is a way to understand and reveal new layers that are until then unknown places.

Vanessa Watson's exposition highlights how Jean and John Comaroff's scholarship challenges the established Western framework of urban studies, aligning with the 'Southern Turn' advocated by sociologist Rachel Connell. This shift calls for alternative theoretical approaches that diverge from the dominant urban discourse, a view shared by contemporary Southern city scholars like Jennifer Robinson, who emphasize the need for broader insights beyond privileged cities, especially within neo-liberal and post-colonial contexts. In response, Southern theory has gained traction, extending beyond the 'global South.' This emphasizes the normative underpinnings of 'northern urban' or colonial city discourses, with the practical application of these concepts being as important as their conceptual content.
A vital link between decolonial scholars and proponents of Southern Theory is their acknowledgment of marginalized knowledge communities and the purposeful rearticulation of such knowledge. Gautam Bhan's exploration of Southern Urbanism highlights its role as a 'mode of theory building,' integrating research with practical applications in Southern cities. The 'a Southern paradigm' is envisioned as a dynamic, relational concept transcending fixed geographical boundaries. While the evolving discourse on Southern Urbanism eludes precise universal definition, scholars like Bhan provide insightful perspectives. For instance, Bhan's interpretation of Pieterse and Simone's view of Southern cities extends beyond viewing vulnerability solely through a developmental lens, fostering innovative approaches to urban development. Despite insights from Ola Uduku's work, the exploration of architecture and design-focused interpretations of Southern Urbanism remains relatively uncharted. This gap prompts a revaluation of the notion of urban design from a Southern standpoint, acknowledging peripheral dynamics, aligned with the call from Brazilian urbanist Tereisa Caldera for 'research with an accent.'
Considering these factors, this presentation aims to unpack these dynamics and outline the research inquiry's nature, proposing an additional, nuanced Southern perspective to the discourse of Urban Design. This will involve sharing the findings from own doctoral research as well as those from the Southern Urban Maintenance Corner Initiatives Reading/Doing Group and Reflective Seminar. These involved a critical examination of spatial agency, a reconsideration of northern perspectives, and an exploration of distinctive 'southern' paradigms in spatial design and maintenance.

Lagos, Nigeria, a significant financial center in Africa is contributing substantially to the continent's GDP. Recently, a new economic complex, Eko Atlantic, has been under development. Eko Atlantic aims to become an international commerce city, boasting modern environmental standards. The project extends adjacent to Lagos' established financial district, Victoria Island. However, it is essential to acknowledge the city's ongoing struggle with sea-level rise, further exacerbated by climate change. To analyze the development, a research approach incorporating literature review and Landsat satellite imagery spanning 19 years was employed, covering the area of Eko Atlantic's construction and surroundings. The analysis revealed evident inundation patterns and land clearing, raising concerns about the threat posed to Lagos' urban population. Moreover, the investigation into the development unveiled several controversies, including sea dredging and ocean surges, as well as the displacement of slum communities. These issues disproportionately affect different communities, with formal communities protected from sea-level rise and benefiting from the Eko Atlantic development, while informal communities bear the consequences of the adverse effects, compounded by existing socio-economic vulnerability. Ultimately, the development of Eko Atlantic has aggravated urban inequality in Lagos. This research delves deeper into these implications, drawing insights from Campbell's (2003) "The Development Conflict" and Harvey's (2007) concept of "Accumulation by Dispossession." By shedding light on the disparities between formal and informal communities, this study emphasizes the need for more inclusive and equitable urban development policies in Lagos. It underscores the urgency of addressing climate change-induced challenges, considering the socio-economic well-being of all residents. While the Eko Atlantic development holds the potential to bolster economic growth and international commerce, it also presents critical challenges related to climate change impacts, community displacement, and urban inequality. Understanding and addressing these issues are vital for creating a sustainable and prosperous future for Lagos and its diverse population.

Banyalbufar is a small secluded island village surrounded by the Balearic Tramuntana mountain range, a UNESCO World Heritage site, which due to climate change, is often suffering from severe droughts. Although partially unused today, in the 10th century it was inhabited and cultivated by the Islamic culture, who created a complex resource management system for irrigation with more than 2,000 terraces, fountains, aqueducts and cisterns, a body of knowledge acquired and adapted from their antecedent experience in Yemen. To build the many terraces, a complete circular construction system was developed reusing the stones that would impede the planting and using them as retaining walls. Dry connections were used to enable their further disassembly and reuse. The latter Christian conquest of the island in the 13th century, profited the system to give rise to dry farming practices focusing on olives, tomatoes and wine cultivations, creating a unique agricultural system today partially unused and with an extreme potential to be reused and repurposed. As the village has experienced in the last years a regrowth of the population with a younger generation moving back, the village school has reopened, the fishing coming back to life, and the local wine specie, Malvasia, which had disappeared in the 19th century due to different plages, has been reinserted and recultivated. Through a series of research workshops, we are exploring the architectural, infrastructural and urban heritage of Banyalbufar, as well as its potential future as a prototype for future sustainable circular communities which can be reactivated learning from their vernacular knowledge and traveling South to North. The research is realized in collaboration with Kosmos Architects, Isla and Guillem Aloy.

While researching for my thesis about art and olfaction with a focus on the particular smell of hay in Transylvania, Romania, a region with one of the most biodiverse grasslands in Europe, I have found a direct correlation between topography, traditional land farming, and architecture.
Traditional low-intensity farming has died out in almost all European countries and, due to its scarcity, studies focusing on traditional land management and architecture are also rare. Romanian traditional houses have acquired their style in a mainly agricultural economy and in an excessive continental climate. The traditional village landscapes have undergone transformations due to socio-political and economic developments, which have led to irreversible losses in biodiversity, authenticity, and aesthetics. Traditional architecture is often undervalued and therefore becomes increasingly vulnerable in the current context, where modern comfort is preferred to traditional construction methods.
Surdesti, Şesuri, or Botiza are still places in Transylvania where biodiversity is well-preserved. These villages differ in topography: Botiza for example is situated in a valley and therefore contains defined zones for houses and gardens, wherein in Şesuri the houses are spread and harmoniously integrated into nature. The primary occupation of the locals is agriculture and animal breeding (most products are kept within the family). The original houses, which have a lifespan of 70 to 80 years, are traditionally constructed from wood, clay, and straw. Some of them have even been transformed into comfortable cottages. With a high thermal transfer coefficient, these homes have shown resistance to earthquakes without collapsing and often only with minor damage.1 The surrounding meadows and the grounds mow by hand, therefore you can still find a rare and protected flora with orchids, wild gladioli, and carnivorous plants, among others, and equally impressive is the fauna with brown bears, wolves, lynxes, otters, deer, and a large variety of rare birds such as hoopoes and orioles.

White is ubiquitous. It is conventionally associated with cleanliness and purity. However, its complex nature is less understood. We have somehow since the modern times perceived white spaces to be clean, comfortable and safe. When we sit or stand against a solid white white wall, write on a white piece of paper, brush our teeth with the stark white toothpaste, etc we rarely or mostly never think about how it is produced, its contents and its impacts if one were to zoom in on its hidden dimensions. The arrival of a white involves digging, modifying, reforming, rearranging, mining and so forth causing destructive divisions between humans and between humans and other-than-human forces.

Nowadays, synthetic white pigment like Titanium Dioxide (also known as TiO2, Titania, Pigment White 6) is widespread. Its rising demand in construction, automotives, textile, cosmetic and other industries as a dispersing agent, flocculent and most importantly as a whitening agent is spurring the demand worldwide. As the demand rises, its disconnected production networks have impacted the local ecosystems, causing grave geo-environmental problems, affecting socio-economic development and creating severe health threats in areas where it is produced.

Skondal, Norway

In 1910, a Norwegian chemist filed a patent for the production method for a pigment that aesthetically changed all modern surfaces. The white pigment TiO2, called “the whitest white,” revolutionized the global color industry by bringing onto the market a pure white paint that resisted discoloration due to dirt and rust. After a hundred years of mining, the extraction of TiO2 has left an irreversible change in the local landscape in Sokndal, Norway. The environmental traces of mining modernism consist of a vast cut through the surface of the earth and a grey artificial desert of mining waste. Each year 13 million tons of ore are excavated in the open pit mine, which results in the land deposit growing by 2.7 million tons every year.

Kerala, India

Countries like India produce mammoth amounts of Titanium Dioxide to meet its annual demand with almost more than three quarters of the requirement fulfilled through imports from China. The pigment is mainly sourced from ilmenite, which is the most widespread titanium dioxide-bearing ore and its presence in certain parts of India have made these key production hubs for pigment white. In order to avoid imports, four key organizations developed around these key areas are aiding India to become self-sufficient. While on one hand India is trying to move towards self-sufficiency to meet the required demand of TiO2 by reducing imports, on the other, the extractive production methods causing build up of unfathomable levels of iron oxide, one of the by-products is causing grave geo-environmental problems.  As per reports 2,00,000 metric tonnes of iron oxide sludge and 2,00,000 metric tonnes of ETP sludge has been generated since 1984-2008. Currently there is no safe process to dispose of the toxic iron oxide waste. It has impacted the surrounding and distant areas: wiping off villages, agriculture, animal husbandry, aquatic life, and has continually been a cause for health concerns among locals who live and work in the shadow of the TiO2 industry.

In order to rethink resource use and reuse, we need a radical change in the way we understand our material surroundings. How can we make visible what is hidden in the white pigment that surrounds us everyday? How can we create new narratives that understand the web of mutuality within production and consumption of the white pigment? This talk will explore how art history and arts-based methods can be used in thinking through white which does not lead to a nostalgia for cleanliness, purity and pristineness, but moves towards a future where white engages with its waste both materially and socially.

In the histories of modern architecture in the MENA region, including Iran, there is a strong inclination to perceive fundamental architectural shifts towards modernity as colonial, Western, and imitative. While these accounts certainly hold some truth, they often neglect the agency of Iranians and, in some cases, lack the nuance needed to appreciate differences in various contexts in the Global South region. During the 19th to mid-20th century, the issue of contagious diseases became a problem that led to the emergence of certain modern socio-political concepts. As argued by scholars, the introduction of modern concepts, such as the formulation of despotism and liberty, was partly based on the collective understanding of epidemics as a nationwide crisis. For my research project, I am exploring questions such as how the notion of "modern" as "healthy" architecture was defined and shaped in Iran. How were pre-modern architectural traditions categorized and demonized as the architecture of despotism, associated with filth, disease, and death? How did these understandings influence architectural practices until the mid-20th century? Can we reconsider some of the architectural efforts typically considered aesthetic or Western as attempts to promote hygiene in Iranian architecture? How was the role of women redefined as the domestic agents of the new “healthy” architecture? How did different readings of religion influence these efforts? How did new spatial layouts or landscape design contribute to these health concerns? In my talk, I will touch on some of these questions, echoed both in the theoretical debates and architectural practices from the mid-19th to mid-20th century in Iran.

As climate change intensifies, architects and other design professionals are creating bold visions for future dwellings, such as green buildings, masterplanned eco-cities, and even planetary-scale sustainability measures. These climatopias, categorically different from ecological utopias of the past, are architectural and urban planning proposals for the built environment that seek to address climate adaptation and/or mitigation through new design, material, and sociopolitical processes. Even if never implemented, climatopias have inspired provocative thinking for the climate crisis, and they could transform systems that no longer serve the greater good. However, as with all utopian works, climatopias have the potential to do as much harm as good. Integrating research from architectural studies, utopian studies, and adaptation science, this paper defines the concept of climatopia and analyzes eight climatopia projects around the world for their effectiveness, justice, and feasibility. Our findings reveal that climatopias have the potential to support climate resilience in planning and design schemes for the built environment when they 1) employ design, construction, and material production processes that significantly lower a project’s embodied carbon, 2) are affordable and involve residents in the design and implementation processes, and 3) are designed to be built and deployed today or are designed to provoke transformational thinking about potential climate solutions. To ignore these factors runs the risk of climatopias becoming yet another chapter of failed, if not harmful, utopian experiments in the built environment.

Roman law once controlled property by bestowing three rights upon its proprietors: usus, fructus, and abusus. But usus and fructus alone, the rights to use and profit from something, did not constitute ownership. In order to own something, one must have been able to destroy it.

Abusus was everywhere in mid-twentieth-century Brussels. Buildings were falling as fast as they were going up. A most-famous victim of this “Brusselization” was Maison du Peuple (1896-1899), the Belgian Labour Party Headquarters designed by the acclaimed Belgian architect Victor Horta. In 1963, protesters responded with outrage to the planned demolition of the building. In Venice, 1964, more than 700 architects signed a petition against its destruction. In 1965, Maison du Peuple was demolished, save the main banquet hall, the cafe, and a staircase which were marked, disassembled, and stored until plans for their use could be finalized. Most plans for reconstruction never materialized. Instead, the pieces of Maison du Peuple, totalling 130 tonnes of material, disappeared to disparate locations. Remnants of Horta’s masterpiece laid dormant in the cellar of the Saint-Gilles town hall, the backyard of the Horta Museum, a cafe in the center of Antwerp, the Brussels Comic Strip Centre, and in an underground tram station at the corner of Chaussée de Waterloo and Rue du Lycée, Brussels. 70 tons of building elements were sold to a scrap dealer. Twelve truckloads were distributed to a museum and two municipalities. A number of stone and iron pieces simply sunk into the swamp-like field where they were stored. Countless elements were looted from open storage in vacant lots.

The international “ownership” of monuments was an emerging idea of the time and the Belgian public and an international congress of architects did not agree with the abusus of their treasured building. For DocTalks, I will discuss Maison du Peuple through the lens of its owners, rather than authors, to reconsider the role they played in shaping (and destroying) the architecture.

Over the past decade, reflection upon the “Digital in Architecture” has set off a mad dash by architectural institutions, historians, and offices to preserve digital material for posterity. CAD drawings, 3D models, and even BIM assets have acquired a level of historical value necessitating the emergence of new archival preservation practices. Architectural archivists and historians are now confronted again with old media technologies and the necessity to make their contents accessible for dissemination and research. But these archival processes erase as much as they preserve, erasing the traces of digital technological practice in favour of content: drawings and images.

This paper, emerging from my current dissertation research which revisits the digital technological transformation of architectural practice since the 1980s, will discuss the pragmatics of architectural archiving through the private “living archive” of the Fondazione Renzo Piano (FRP). Simultaneously an office archive and personal-historical archive, the FRP will provide an opportunity to discuss the limits and opportunities of contemporary architectural archiving as a practice. This paper presents the technological practices of “refreshing” digital material for public dissemination through the old computing technologies collected in the “Frankenstein PC.” These practices will be discussed through the kinds of information they erase and the potential new avenues of inquiry they open. 

My project explores the critical potential of architects’ toolkits to re-design domesticity as a space of inclusion for sexual and gender diverse people. My work engages with the ongoing debate around homonormativity in queer studies and deploy a queer design toolkit to explore how the nuanced politics of the home are spatialised.

Scholarship on queer space has historically prioritised public and commercial spaces, from ‘gaybourhoods’ to night clubs. Domestic spaces have historically received less attention and have often been framed as sites of normalising power. This is despite the richness of feminist critiques of domesticity as a key agent in the construction and reproduction of gender and sexuality. Some scholars have since problematised this reading of home and argued for more nuanced understandings of domesticity.

My thesis takes a transdisciplinary approach to domesticity, acknowledging that a wide and diverse range of forms of knowledge is required to explore its nuances. This includes the design practice of dollhouse-making, rooted in architectural design methods but also in toy-making and other forms of craft; as well as qualitative research methods, developed in relation to queer critiques of ethnography.

My research uses co-design workshops with an aim to decentre the architect in the design process and re-situate them as a facilitator of participants’ domestic utopias. Dollhouses will assist this process, facilitating design fabulations between participants and designer. This research situates fabulations as utopian constructions related to everyday experience, spaces, and rituals, thus surfing the binary between the quotidian and the fantastic. My thesis argues that dollhouses have the ability to project queer futures into everyday spaces, and explores the role of dollhouses as disobedient objects, which enable critiques of architecture’s disciplinary conventions, and thus of the spaces and aesthetics of normative domesticity.

Ultimately, this project aims to develop a queer set of design methods that can be used to produce domestic prototypes to demonstrate new spatial, ethical, and aesthetic horizons for queer inclusive design.

This paper, constituting Chapter 3 of my dissertation, delves into the realm of queer spatial fluidity by examining the concept of performing objects. Focusing on the use of objects to transform the dance stage into a queer space for experimenting with relationalities, the study conducts movement analysis on the dance production Fluids and Lovers. My argument posits that sex objects in dance, such as lubricant and disco ball-shaped textures, provide nonhuman mobility, altering human movement models and challenging conventional anthropocentric perspectives in both dance and performance studies. Drawing on object-oriented philosophy, new materialism, dance studies, and queer performance theory, this research utilizes performance as a lens to intervene in our recognition of objects and space in the broader humanities.