Climate issues have been the main topic of discussions about the future of cities, but they are certainly not new. The warning about human irreversibility on the planet has been part of scientific discourse since the 1980s. Faced with increasingly frequent environmental urgencies, Donna Haraway, in her book Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, suggests a change in attitude on the part of humans to ensure not only partial environmental recovery but the species' survival.
The author uses the term Chthulucene to advocate not only a new era but a posture that involves what she calls tentacular thinking and sympoiesis - the synchronic construction of reality. The word cthulhu comes from the Greek khthonios, which means "coming from the earth" and, for Haraway, opens up both to imagination and to study that allows for understanding the world.
For the author, the Chthulucene era borrows and adapts the spelling of a spider species - Pimoa cthulhu - to weave relationships and stories between species. Death and destruction are present. Nevertheless, the Chthulucene allows exchanges, knots, entanglements, and an increase in reach.
Nothing is connected to everything; everything is connected to something. [1]
Given the relational posture of the Chthulucene, it is possible to encourage or perceive these exchanges in architectural spaces. Humans are inserted within a larger context, but initially, can be seen intra-species: no one does anything “alone”. For an individual to have autonomy, there are “others” who participate in the construction of a small reality. It is essential to remember that identity construction occurs through origin and genealogy, which presupposes a community of peers.
Living together has always been an architectural issue to be answered, usually in a hegemon way. This favors some at the expense of many or dissociates the individual from the whole as if separation were possible. In the Chthulucene, the community prevails over the individual. The bonds shared by a group - whether hereditary or not - strengthen collaboration and mutual assistance. In occupancies and co-living, residents constantly negotiate, and they create a kind of "micro-climate" that does not exclude disagreements. Harmony does not mean uniformity.
Collectivity involves burdens and benefits in its consequences. Chthulucene is not just positive. It involves attempts, errors and risks. However, contingencies can generate other realities, alternatives to the dominant one. In collective housing spaces, the aspect of shared management is more evident. Recognizing the tacit or explicit bond established between people in any architectural space - homes, sidewalks, public spaces - is to understand tentacular thinking and its influences.
The conscious use of materials extends the reach of the web of connections that humans and architecture are part of. Constructive responsibility can be seen as a relationship that expands beyond living agents - humans and the environment - and inserts architecture as an inanimate but active agent on an equal footing with others. The increasingly frequent examples of natural construction materials or the use of materials from the region where the project will be built are reflections of the tentacular approach applied to architecture.
Biophilic design balances the tension between humans and their environmental surroundings. Sustainable materials require less from the planet and allow constructions to be vacated or demolished to be environmentally reabsorbed. In other words, by returning architecture as an active agent in the Chthulucene, it is as if it could die, just like its occupants. Constructions are no longer eternal, and ruins are no longer debris. Instead, they become elements within a system where other elements are born, live, and die. Understanding the life cycle and mutual benefits in the relationships between terrestrial beings and objects should be central to a more balanced existence between them.
It matters which ideas we use to think of other ideas [2]
Relationships are central to the Chthulucene, but this is not an original idea either. Indigenous peoples have lived these relationships for centuries, and their knowledge teaches other ways of the world. The growing diffusion of this knowledge remakes the current image of the world. It brings to architecture vernacular techniques that can - and should - be used and updated to build new spaces. It is not just about the building material, but also about its placement in the environment. The shapes of villages and their homes teach about structural, energetic, and social efficiency. Access to this knowledge can change the field of study and mitigate human damage to its fellow beings.
If in the Chthulucene reality is constructed from the simultaneity of various interactions between beings and objects, architecture certainly plays a part in that relationship. It influences and modifies its occupants - human or otherwise - while being influenced and changed by them. From a more respectful and responsible perspective, constructions should reflect the intra- and interspecies relationships surrounding them. There will be no shortage of challenges for this, nor inventive and captivating answers.
Notes:
[1] HARAWAY, Donna J. Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2016, p. 31.
[2] Ibid., p. 34.
