Das Kapitel geht der kritischen Untersuchung der Rolle der Bauindustrie beim Ressourcenverbrauch und der dringenden Notwendigkeit nachhaltigerer Praktiken nach. Sie unterstreicht die einzigartigen Herausforderungen und Chancen des globalen Südens, insbesondere Afrikas, wo Ressourcenbeschränkungen und sozioökonomische Faktoren innovative und widerstandsfähige architektonische Lösungen erfordern. Der Text untersucht das Konzept der "Widerstandsarchitektur", das konventionelle Baumethoden in Frage stellt und lokalem Wissen, sozialer Inklusivität und ökologischer Nachhaltigkeit Priorität einräumt. Sie diskutiert auch die ethischen und moralischen Folgen der Architektur und betont die Bedeutung räumlicher Handlungsfähigkeit und der Begegnung mit dem Anderssein bei der Schaffung gerechterer und nachhaltigerer bebauter Umgebungen. Das Kapitel untersucht außerdem das Zusammenspiel zwischen globaler und lokaler Tektonik und argumentiert, dass ein hybrider Ansatz die Beschränkungen beider ansprechen kann. Es präsentiert Fallstudien zeitgenössischer afrikanischer Architektur, die das Potenzial der Kombination von digitalem Design mit lokalen Materialien und Techniken aufzeigen, um nachhaltige und kulturell reaktionsfähige Gebäude zu schaffen. Der Text befasst sich auch mit den ethischen Überlegungen der Arbeit über geografische und soziale Grenzen hinweg und betont die Notwendigkeit von Empathie, gerechtem Austausch und einer starken ethischen Basis in der architektonischen Praxis. Abschließend plädiert er für ein klareres tektonisches Verständnis der materiellen und arbeitsbedingten Herkunft, um einen gerechteren Dialog zwischen Nord und Süd sowie zwischen Gesellschaft und Umwelt zu ermöglichen.
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Abstract
Boundaries are spaces of contestation and encounter. When considering contemporary architecture in the global South, particularly in Africa, these spaces of encounter are especially pronounced. There is a body of architectural work in Africa produced by architects who are crossing physical boundaries between the global North and the global South, and the boundaries between global and local ways of making; some of them have also begun to blur the boundaries between the digital and the analogue. Drawing on previous empirical research in Africa, and building on literature about deborderisation, hybridisation, and tectonics, the space of encounter is positioned as a necessary and productive one. Analysis of representative building case studies in three African countries shows how architects are combining global and local tectonics in an effort to engage with social, economic, and environmental limitations. This can be read as a conscientious objection to reckless technological production that is, at times, ignorant of both local conditions and the planetary resource limitations that the world is facing. This paper will argue that the shift towards the tectonic hybridisation of computational design and digital fabrication with the use of local materials, traditions, and skills can further contribute towards this engagement. It emphasises the importance of tectonic ethics as a prerequisite for more equitable forms of exchange and encounter when working across boundaries, and it demonstrates how hybrid tectonics is a potentially useful and transferable strategy to begin to address some of these limitations.
1 Limitations
We have reached, or at least begun to reach, our planetary limits in terms of resource production and consumption. As is well-known, the building industry is one of the largest contributors to resource consumption, and society should come to terms with the fact that more sustainable ways of making buildings must be prioritised. Resource limitations of various forms are often more acutely experienced in the global South, and Africa in particular. Financial constraints, limited access to global supply chains in peripheral areas, and the need for job creation and skills building are very real concerns, while inequality and inequity of exchange across physical boundaries and boundaries between global and local ways of making can generate further long-term limitations.
However, positive factors such as the capacity for innovation, resilience, traditional knowledge, social inclusivity, and a resistance to limitations are rarely mentioned, and they are becoming increasingly visible through some of the contemporary architecture that is emerging from and within Africa. Louw [1], when reflecting on projects that exhibit some of these qualities, writes that “They resist conspicuous consumption, wastefulness, conventional ways of making, commercial trends, the absence of infrastructure, limitations in terms of skill and education, and conventional aesthetic expectations amongst others. As a form of practice that is becoming more formalised and widespread in the Southern context, they could well be regarded as a form of ‘resistance architecture’”. Collier [2] discusses the link between ethics and aesthetics which is also mentioned by Awan, Schneider and Till [3]. However, they note that the role of aesthetics and tectonics should be located more realistically within wider social conditions through specific aims related to spatial agency. We suggest that the ethical and moral consequences of architecture is what connects an artifact to resistance. An encounter is an engagement with otherness, and more situated forms of architecture that address the inequity of encounters between different places, people, and between people and the natural environment, can contribute towards this resistance.
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2 North-South Encounters
Mavhunga [4] writes that “A geophysical zoning of the definition and directionality of technology has been hammered into our brains… and that technology can only come from the West and is ‘transferred’ to the technology-poor Global South”. The increasing contribution of contemporary African architecture to global architectural discourse, as recognised through Francis Kéré’s Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2022, is countering this trend by driving innovatory change from the South, and it is happening through encounters across boundaries from South to North and from North to South. However, there are structural inequalities that exist across boundaries, which means that a recognition of the value of technological knowledge from the South, as embodied in some of these works, is essential to allow for more equitable forms of co-production [5].
3 Tectonic Encounters
Different ways of making are often described as global or local based on where their materials are extracted or processed, and where the labour is employed for these processes and their assembly (or disassembly), but to classify them as global or local tectonics should also bear in mind what they represent. A highly industrialised and energy-consuming material can be produced very close to a building site, but this does not necessarily mean that it should be classified under local tectonics. Its underpinning values might not embody the local. Frampton uses Jørn Utzon’s 1976 Bagsværd Church to make the distinction between materials or elements that have different underpinning values. He suggests that its prefabricated modular concrete structure not only embodies the values of universal civilisation “but also ‘represents’ its capacity for normative application” while the more unique in-situ vault “proclaims the values of idiosyncratic culture” [6]. The global is represented by the normative application of the reinforced concrete grid and precast elements, while the local is represented by the unique reinforced concrete shell. Reflecting on these values in the present requires the consideration of social and ecological imperatives to determine their underpinning values since, as Frampton himself says “With the manifest exhaustion of non-renewable resources the technotopic myth of unlimited progress becomes somewhat discredited” [7].
Global tectonics give highest value to speed of production, while local tectonics are often valorised as a way of preserving local identity. The former is regularly criticised for being profit-driven at the expense of environmental and social concerns, while the latter is said to be overly nostalgic with an inability to provide for increased demand and often does not comply with contemporary building codes. These two ways of making often co-exist, and the encounter between them can be a productive one where their respective advantages can be maximized. Mbembe writes that our current ways of making that are predicated on the appropriation and extraction of resources resemble past colonial practices, and he argues that people owe the environment a “debt of care” [8]. It can be argued that building anything is already contrary to this, but working across the global-local spectrum can begin to move towards more sustainable ways of making.
4 Tectonic Analysis
The Umubano Primary School extension by Active Social Architecture (ASA) which was completed in 2018 in Kigali, is representative of an emergent form of practice in Rwanda which can be said to be supported by a knowledge community of architects from global and local origin based in that country. A tectonic analysis of this building begins to show how working across the boundaries of global and local tectonics can generate a recognisable architectural language that responds to global trends and challenges, while being cognisant of social, environmental, and economic issues at a local level. It is an example that forms part of a much broader shift in Africa where architects are using similar methods to combine global tectonics with local natural materials and skills. This is to balance demands for increased speed and durability, and conforming to building codes, with broader socio-environmental concerns, and economic, material, and technical limitations.
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This project, like most of the practice’s work, deliberately combines global and local ways of making. A visual analysis by Louw [9] based on literature reviews, a site visit, interviews with the architects and users of the building, was used to understand the origins of the materials and labour for this project. Figure 1 shows the material origins and places of processing, and their relative distance from the site. Grouping the building elements under global or local tectonics addresses their underpinning values, and their relationship to social and environmental conditions. Under global tectonics, the elements made from steel and concrete have a high environmental footprint in terms of extraction, processing and transport, and minimal social impact at a local level, but they do offer speed, structural efficiency and durability. Local tectonic elements, including bricks made using local clay in small, local brick kilns, natural stone, locally harvested reeds and lathes and repurposed packaging material have a much lower environmental footprint, provide local employment and use local skills, but tend to take longer to make and some of them require regular maintenance or renewal, which can also have some benefit in terms of skill preservation and employment.
Fig. 1.
Visual analysis of material and labour origins for the Umubano Primary School extension in Kigali, Rwanda, structured according to global and local tectonics. Designed by ASA as an extension to the original buildings by MASS Design Group [Louw, 2021: 148–149].
Combining global and local ways of making based on their respective advantages is a good first step, but the challenge is to shift the balance more towards the local without compromising on speed, structural efficiency, or durability. One way of doing this is to use digital design and making to enhance the efficiency of local materials and techniques through form-finding to reduce the reliance on global trade networks with their associated environmental and social costs.
5 Hybrid Tectonics
Homi K. Bhabha [10] regards the margins - read boundaries - between cultures as spaces where cultural production is located, and Hérnandez [11] writes about the so-called ‘third space’ as “…outside, or in-between, traditional binary structures… an attempt to assign spatial characteristics to the margins, those areas of irresolution between cultures, or inside them, where hybridisation occurs”. Using subtractive collages based on the tectonic analysis technique used in Fig. 1, Fig. 2 provides a visual representation of the balance between global and local tectonics across three buildings. Building 1 and 2 have a good balance between global and local tectonics, having used materials such as steel and concrete in combination with local natural materials and local reused, repurposed, and recycled materials, but when represented visually, the global and local can be clearly distinguished and separated. Building 3 is different in that the global and local tectonics appear in both images.
In this building, local Senegalese roof forms were parametrically manipulated to increase their spanning capabilities. This was to create a larger covered surface for a public program and for optimal water harvesting in anticipation of the annual dry season. Weaving was used as the underlying principle, and the local technique of roof making informed the digital design. Local reed and bamboo were used by local craftspeople to make the structure, which is supported by concrete columns and steel perimeter beams, meaning it can be maintained and replaced by the local community using local materials. When represented graphically, the balance between global and local tectonics becomes less distinguishable and visually represents blurring of the boundaries between global/digital and local/analogue by overlapping or straddling multiple positions.
Fig. 2.
Subtractive collages of three buildings showing the visual balance between global tectonics (above) and local tectonics (below). From left to right: Building 1 is the Umubano Primary School extension, Kigali, Rwanda, 2018, by ASA; Building 2 is the Guga S’Thebe Theatre, Langa, Cape Town, South Africa, 2016 by RWTH Aachen University, PBSA Düsseldorf, Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Cape Town and CS Studio Architects; Building 3 is the Thread Artists’ Residency and Cultural Centre, Sinthian, Senegal, 2015, by Toshiko Mori Architect. [Photos and adaptations of Buildings 1 and 2 by Louw, 2021: 153–233; photo of Building 3 by Tomà Berlanda, adapted by Author 1].
Other examples of this hybrisidation of digital and analogue are the Warka Water Towers designed by Architecture and Vision, in particular version 3.2 that was erected in Dorze, Ethiopia in 2015, and the Loom Hyperbolic Higher Atlas in Marrakesh, Morocco, designed by Barkow Leibinger Architekten for the 4th Marrakesh Biennale in 2012. These projects are in different countries in Africa, so they have different contextual nuances, but the principle of exchange between global and local is similar. Some of the work explored here has been partially replicated by local communities, and to some extent by the same architects in the global North. However, the contexts are vastly different, and the sustainable replication of hybrid tectonics in other contexts would have to be preceded by a critical examination of local conditions. By foregrounding local knowledge of climate, materials and skills, digital design and making can be equipped to leverage local ways of making and expand their possibilities.
Jacob [12] is of the opinion that “Acts of contemporary making involve hand, tool, machine, robot and code in a continuous spectrum of possibilities. The divisions that once clearly marked the boundary between craft and mass production rearrange themselves as, over time, forms of technology percolate through culture”. Rossi [13] writes about the compatibility of craft with digital technologies, which Louw supports when he says that computer-aided design “crosses all boundaries, breaks down barriers and potentially could affect every aspect of the architectural creative process” [14].
6 The Ethics of Encounter
Architecture can be regarded as a form of ethical investigation which is influenced by social, economic, environmental, and political forces, and Collier [2] suggests moral imagination as a necessary strategy to produce responsive and situated architecture. Most countries have a professional code of conduct for practicing architecture, and architects have a duty of care towards society and the environment when designing buildings. This is something that needs to inform design and making when working across geographic and social boundaries where the conditions attached to assistance often skew the power balance towards the North. Aid-based funding sometimes governs the architecture itself, and who designs it, which can have negative consequences if local communities are reduced to passive receivers of buildings.
The recognition of environmental ethics is, or arguably should be, a non-negotiable principle when designing buildings anywhere in the world. However, “greenwashing” is still actively practiced and Ostwald [15] suggests that an “environmental ethic” should not be confused with an “environmental aesthetic”. It has become fashionable to work with natural materials to put forward the right credentials on social media, but without long-term engagement and allowance for rigorous prototyping, testing and acceptance to ensure quality, durability or maintenance, these sorts of material choices could be problematic. The occupants of the buildings that are designed, built, and then forgotten by architects working across boundaries are often left with something that is climatically, socially or economically unsustainable. Managing expectations with local communities, who often aspire towards having “modern” materials like steel and concrete for their perceived quality, can be challenging when architects or foreign agencies specify the use local natural materials. Here the combination of global and local tectonics can be a useful strategy, where the structure, which has to be durable and uncompromising in terms of safety, can be made with structurally efficient and well-tested materials such as steel, concrete or structural timber, while the building skin can be made using local tectonics such as earth if it has been well-tested and if it is either durable enough or that there are funds and strategies in place for regular renewal. Through this strategy, architects can establish hierarchies between global and local tectonics in terms of relative strengths, to the advantageous use of both.
The awareness and acknowledgement of difference or otherness is crucial for the shaping of architecture in other contexts. Besides being aware of different ways of making and being, working across boundaries requires not only empathy but a willingness to engage in equal and equitable exchange. One of the criticisms against Critical Regionalism is that it was essentially a mediation of Modernism or universal civilisation through the incorporation of local imagery or appropriation of local patterns, and working with local light conditions, topography, or climate. This was successful in some instances, but in others it was a superficial sensitivity to local cultures or worse, using architecture as an ideological tool [16]. There is an inherent danger in transplanting Northern tropes with only a modest Southern inflection. Appropriation, or the uncritical translation of traditional forms are reminiscent of former colonial practices which should be avoided. When global digital tectonics are hybridised with local tectonics, one should be cognisant of the equity of exchange. As Mbembe [17] observes, a “technological escalation… has led to the emergence of computational capitalism in our times. We are no longer in the era of the machine but in the age of the algorithm”.
7 Conclusion
Working across boundaries requires a strong ethical base in terms of the consideration of difference, aesthetics, professional ethics, environmental ethics, and especially tectonic ethics. The recognition of limits at the global and local scale is essential when practicing architecture across geographic, social, and tectonic boundaries. Working across the spectrum from global to local tectonics is one way of shifting towards a more equitable dialogue between North and South, but also between society and the environment. A clearer tectonic understanding of the distribution of the origins of materials and labour can inform this dialogue, and while the method used in this paper to analyse the balance between global and local tectonics was useful to evaluate contemporary work in Africa, it is potentially replicable elsewhere if preceded by a critical analysis of local conditions. It shows not only how different ways of making are being hybridised, but also how the incorporation of digital design and making can further blur the boundaries between global and local tectonics.
Acknowledgements
With thanks to Professor Emeritus Iain Low for his contributions to the topic. This paper was prepared and presented with funding assistance from the University of Canberra’s Faculty of Arts and Design.
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