The event begins with SCI-Arc student Olivia Saed-Billingsly outlining the goals of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA).
After Elena Manferdini’s introduction, Anupama Kundoo discusses the background of her work.
She critiques thoughtless reliance on dubious time- and cost-saving technologies and contrasts industrialized construction’s sense of time and scarcity, with pre-industrial construction practices, where, “The luxury was not in getting a certain marble from somewhere, or having a fetish about the material itself. It was about how it was crafted; the amount of time people gave.”
She proposes twelve strategies for a new approach to architecture:
1. Material is best treated as local matter. (I.e. using the abundance of a place, the materials, the skills.)
2. Known materials and technologies have uses we have yet to discover. Experiment boldly. (e.g. her “Wall house”, Auroville, 2000)
3. Old can be gold. (e.g. her “Hut in Petite Ferme”, Auroville, 1990)
4. Design so anyone can build.
5. Build so everyone can grow. (e.g. Ray Meeker’s experiments in baked in-situ earth houses, and her own “Volontariat Homes for Homeless Children”, Pondicherry, 2010)
6. Waste less embodied energy. (e.g. her research on ferrocement for lighter structures, prefabrication or in-situ casting, and her “Wall House One to one”, Venice Biennale, 2012)
7. Trash as unimagined treasure. (e.g. her “Library of lost books”, Barcelona, 2014)
8. (Do the math and you’ll see that) good enough is perfect. (e.g. her Community gathering place, Auroville, 2000)
9. Think to learn with your hands. (i.e. building your architectural experiments)
10. Avail of the human scale.
11. Develop what is plentiful and it will extend what is finite.
12. Influence to amplify. (e.g. her”Taking time”, Louisiana Museum (2021)
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