DE-GROWTH IN ARCHITECTURE

DE-GROWTH IN ARCHITECTURE : AN ARCHITECTURAL UNDERSTANDING 

What is De-growth?

We have been talking of sustainable and ecological approach to everything in life, architecture included. Over a period of few decades of patronizing and following it, more and more people are understanding its shallowness. There is a clear writing on the wall that the approach is faulty and improper. It is time that we go a step ahead and think fundamental. The answer can be found in De-Growth.

De-growth is a downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions and equity on the planet. It calls for a future where societies live within their ecological means, with open, localized economies and resources more equally distributed through new forms of democratic institutions. Material accumulation will no longer hold a prime position in the population’s cultural imaginary. The primacy of efficiency will be substituted by a focus on sufficiency, and innovation will no longer focus on technology for technology’s sake but will concentrate on new social and technical arrangements that will enable us to live convivially and frugally.

De-growth proposes a framework for transformation to a lower and sustainable level of production and consumption, a shrinking of the economic system to leave more space for human cooperation and ecosystems. It is a call for a radical break from traditional growth- based models of society, no matter if these models are "left" or "right", to invent new ways of living together in a true democracy, respectful of the values of equality and freedom, based on sharing and cooperation, and with sufficiently moderate consumption so as to be sustainable. Some of the de-growth ideas have been part of philosophical debates for centuries.

The word “Décroissance” (french for degrowth) appeared for the first time in the seventies in different French publications (Amar, 1976; Gorz, 1977; Georgescu-Roegen, 1979) in the follow- up of the club of Rome report (‘The limits to growth’). However Décroissance became an activist slogan in France from 2001, in Italy from 2004 (Decrescita), in Catalonia (Spain) from 2006 (Decreixement and Decrecimiento). The English term ‘Degrowth’ gets accepted at the first de-growth conference in Paris in 2008, which also marks the initiation of de-growth as academic research area and international civil society debate. Few international conferences in Paris(2008), Barcelona(2010), Montreal(2012) and recently Venice(2012) have extolled and explored the idea of De-growth.

De-growth can be understood more clearly if the following points are understood;

• This is not an economic depression, nor a recession, but a decline in the importance of the economy itself in our lives and our societies.

•This is not the decline of GDP, but the end of GDP and all other quantitative measures used as indicators of well being.

•This is not a decline in population size, but a questioning of humanity's self-destructive lifestyle.

•This is not a step backwards, but an invitation to step aside, out of the race in pursuit of excessiveness.

•This is not nostalgia for some golden age, but an unprecedented project to invent creative ways of living together.

•This is not de-growth imposed by the depletion of the biosphere's resources, but a voluntary de-growth, to live better here and now, preserving the conditions necessary for the long-term survival of humanity.

•This is not an end in itself, but a necessary step in the search for models depicting free societies, liberated from the dogma of growth.

•This is not a project of voluntary deprivation and impoverishment, but an attempt to find a "better life", based on simplicity, restraint, and sharing.

•This is not "sustainable development", but a rejection of capitalism, no matter if it is "green" or "socially just", and no matter if it has State-run or private enterprises. This is not eco-fascism, but a call for a democratic revolution to end our productivist- consumerist model of society.

•This is not voluntary simplicity, but a revolutionary political project that implies the adoption of the principles of voluntary simplicity on the individual level. This is not is not an "anti-modern" movement, but a "neo-modern" movement, based on respect for the values of freedom and equality.

De-growth has a multi disciplinary approach and shall be implemented holistically. Fields like agriculture, environmental justice, environmental conflicts and defense neo-rurals, critical consumption, international cooperation, solidarity economy, local currencies, exchange markets, feminism, eco-villages, alternative mobility (bicycles), urban gardens, non-violence and pacifism, anti-advertisement, preventive and alternative medicine, architecture, infrastructure like open pit mines, highways, airports, thermic or nuclear plants, cement factories, incinerators, transport, cities, tourism and various other sectors of production.

Architecture and allied fields are a major contribution to growth and resultant ills facing our world and eco-system today. In fact the measure of growth in most part of the world is architecture. In this senseless and mindless growth of our civilisation and collective imagination of unlimited growth, architecture is a major-visual and factual contributor. Unfortunately architecture of today reflects the un-stoppable and un-satiated material needs of today’s man, is in reality far away from what man is. It does not reflect and address the very fundamental relationship of man and nature, of his climate & context, man’s culture, social and economical needs.

Sustainable architectural development does not bring into question the quest for continuous growth; it is a limitless quest bringing humanity to its doom. Sustainability is, at best a reformist project that fundamentally seeks to organize our world to make it last – pollute less, so that we can pollute for longer !!!

It is a notion that involves a culture of growth ("development"), and thus can be easily embraced by all those who don't want our world to change. It is an idea that diverts too many good intentions from the drastic actions that are required by the urgency of the situation. It is time the idea of sustainability and sustainable architecture and its approach change. It is time that we embrace the fundamental concept of De-growth.

The NATCON 2012 at Raipur shall discuss and ponder upon this very important issue for the future of our planet- “DE-GROWTH IN ARCHITECTURE”.

Content borrowed from: www.iiachhattisgarh.org/NATCON1.htm