ACAN ARCHITECTS CLIMATE NETWORK
Sara Edmonds, Annalena Henssen & Lauren Shevills
in discussion with Nagy Makhlouf
Monday 15 May 2023, 18h
Archizoom EPFL
Mercury Rising: Architecture Beyond Green Washing
Superonda talk n°4
A program proposed by Prof. Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (RIOT lab, EPFL)
How can we make meaningful change in the built environment profession using grassroots tactics and talk about the application of unconventional activist campaigning to business-as-usual constructions techniques? Three ACAN UK members come to EPFL to highlight their personal journeys in their own architectural agency to challenge the status quo and the industry endemic of greenwash tactics. Talking through the genesis of the movement which focuses on 3 simple aims, the ACAN coordinators will take students through real campaign strategies which challenge us to take a different view on our cities and built infrastructure. As well as looking more deeply at the role of the architect which is broad and spans socio-political issues, acknowledging the extractive foundations of our climate hungry profession and how to navigate future stewardship.
BIOGRAPHIES
ARCHITECTS CAN! ACAN is a network of individuals within architecture and related built environment professions taking action to address the twin crises of climate and ecological breakdown. ACAN exists to address the way our built environment is made, operated and renewed in response to the climate emergency.
Nagy Makhlouf is an architect and doctoral student at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), where he collaborates with the ALICE and RIOT laboratories. His research focuses on drawing the debt-driven political economy of space and its links to the production of race and gender, notably through single-family housing.
