The term transcalar foregrounds the idea that architectural and urban habitat transcends singular readings, interpretations, or solutions. It promotes seamlessly working across a continuum of scales, engaging profound ecological entanglements.
Architectural research is in re/action to the climate crisis. Understanding and dealing with the ecological harm caused by architecture has become an important task for architects and researchers. This transcalar survey of ideas and methods for addressing issues like material uses, land and soil degradation, environmental justice, or circular economy intends to bring together various vantage points from fields such as construction, theory, sociology, history, aesthetics, and urbanism in order to question what technical solutions, architectural typologies, or urban practices may be allow to allow for new prospects in view of the climate emergency. Through the form of interviews, statements, and representative objects, researchers at the EPFL critically examine factors such as comfort, standards, profit, and individual needs within the architectural realm.
Edited by Jeffrey Huang, Dieter Dietz, Laura Trazic, Korinna Zinovia Weber
With photographs by Etienne Malapert, Alain Herzog
With essays by Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Paola Viganò, Tommaso Pietropolli, Laila Seewang, Alfredo Thiermann, Xavier Nueno, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Jo Taillieu, Véronique Patteeuw, Martin Fröhlich, Lara Monti
Design: Hubertus Design
Published in 2024