Over the years, FuturArc has spoken to numerous women architects, designers and changemakers who have been making waves in the field of sustainability in Asia. So, in doing an issue about women and architecture, and presenting more leading women in the following pages, we are in no way forgetting about those from earlier conversations. Here, we are highlighting excerpts from three of them who represent different aspects of making a difference in the built, natural and social environments: the way we build, what we build with, who we build for, and how we coexist and interact with diverse ecosystems.
earlier. Nature is not just death; it is also abundancy. We are given a lot of resources. We need to be sensitive to these resources and use them responsibly. When we go for a holiday, we choose places that have a unique authenticity, where the architecture emerges from a deep understanding of endogenous materials and the local climate that is respectful of human scale. As designers, we have lost the ability to read a place. And the more we lose the understanding of local potentials and resources, the more our designs become random. They also become complex because the choice of materials is unlimited if you go beyond existing resources and local markets. The less we know how to build with whatever we find on a site, the less we come up with solutions that are common sense, solutions that emerge from a deep understanding of a place in terms of materiality and climate.
Dipdii Textiles Dipdii Textiles was initiated by Anna Heringer as architect and Veronika
Anna Heringer
Architect and Honorary Professor, UNESCO Chair of Earthen Architecture, Building Cultures and Sustainable Development
How significant is the woman’s perspective in the discussion of sustainability? AH: It’s absolutely vital. But it’s not related only to women; it’s more of the female approach. And this is to care for the process, not just the outcome. It’s about preserving old wisdom. It’s not about conquering new grounds or inventing new things all the time. You hear today of future settlements on Mars. No! I think there should be less conquering and more caring for what we have. This is a female approach. This is a path that has also been taken by some men. Gandhi is one of the best examples. He was talking of exactly the same thing: we should not just consume, but also produce the things we need for life with existing resources. That is how to push sustainability along.
Do you feel that we have lost our way in the sustainability discourse? How did we get here? AH: We are not happy as a society because we’ve become detached, we’ve lost authenticity. We’ve lost harmony with nature. The sustainability debate is not getting to the core problem. If we want to build in harmony with nature, we have to accept the idea of death. It’s a problematic topic and so we try not to talk about it. We pretend to build for eternity. But no one is actually building for eternity. We tear our buildings down after 40 years or so, sometimes
16 FUTURARC
Lena Lang as master tailor, and was created in cooperation with the Bangladeshi nongovernment organisation Dipshikha. It is a company that relies on local textile traditions. Production is decentralised in the villages of Bangladesh where the quality of life and space is both humane and free. Instead of merely consuming resources, the manufacturing process is grafted with time, skills and creativity. This project is a Bangladeshi- German cooperation between crafts(wo)men and designers, together with a Bangladeshi NGO for village development.
Dipdii Textiles Photo by Kurt Hoerbst
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