Roots of Our Cities: The Nonhuman Presence in Architectural Planning

Written by: Engj?ll Rodiqi

Life in our cities is becoming challenging, a challenge to the planet and to our own lives

In the face of a climate crisis, our planet faces a challenge as human actions are rivaling the very forces of nature. Climate change dominates news headlines, urging various professions to redefine their approach and seek solutions which connect them to the relational nature of our planet. This article aims a similar task, one that seeks to join architecture, rural and urban knowledge to taking responsibility for facing the challenges of connecting to a broader world of spirits, entities and other-than-human beings. Simultaneously, it aims to raise the question, what if the physical material that shapes our architecture holds the key to understanding our role in the climate emergency we face today? Can a more in depth appreciation and understanding of the material agency, that derives from the nature which we interact mostly through rural areas, and which is used to create our cities, expand the knowledge of our profession? This writing invites readers to be critical of the potential that planners have, and evolve their knowledge into a more “entity” or “animalistic” mindset, that emerges from embracing the impact that the other-than-humans have in maintaining the wellbeing of our lives, society, and our cities.

"Can a more in depth appreciation and understanding of the material agency, that derives from the nature which we interact mostly through rural areas, and which is used to create our cities, expand the knowledge of our profession?"

Connecting planning processes and climate change through integrating the nonhuman?

To start with, we shall explore the crossroads of architecture and the often overlooked “nonhuman” world. But why the nonhuman? Because our society and building structures are constructed out of vast amounts of physical material harvested from our planets, both living and non-living entities. This material falls in the domain separate from the human, which is a nonhuman. We utilize their strengths and attributes to create our structures. Raw nonhuman materials (steel, cement, timber, etc.) are extracted to shape our societies products and the outcome is a transformed nonhuman (cars, buildings, toothbrushes, etc.) which then is an object, as part of the network of everything which we interact with daily. As architects and planners of all scales and dimensions, acknowledging these entities' socio-philosophical significance can unveil their truthful knowledge and their role in how they affect our lives, structures and beyond. This awareness has become vital in every discipline. It looks to ensure ethical practices, avoiding exploitation that may contribute to climate change, biodiversity loss, and other devastating environmental crises.

How do nonhumans affect the direction our cities are heading?

The concept of the nonhuman has profound relevance in shaping the trajectory of architecture along with the future of the planet and humanity. They are the building blocks of everything. Therefore, acknowledging that such entities have agency is a fundamental discussion across all disciplines. Agency means that there is a cause, an action, generated by one thing, which induces an effect on another thing. Life itself is a continuum of these continuous cause-and-effect relationships. Whether between humans sharing a comforting hug, or trees absorbing carbon to maintain the planet's oxygen balance, we can find this passage of action everywhere. Understanding that everything, human or nonhuman, contributes to the planet's network of life, challenges the perception of nonhumans as lifeless objects, and brings them to an equal importance to the interest of ourselves, the humans.?

In this vision of the other-than-humans, they indeed appear as active entities which live and like to enjoy their life for as long as possible, same to us humans. Embracing this perspective in our daily lives, from consumption habits to recycling and building practices, enables us to foster a more considerate approach that respects the expression and mandatory presence of the nonhuman entities in our cities.?

Gaia Theory and the codependence of humans with the nonhuman persistence

Let us take a step back and try to acknowledge the presence of the nonhuman as an active agent that influences our lives. The best and most direct interaction does emerge from rural areas. Our cities have become such isolators and destroyers of nature, that we would need an escape from their fabric to reach an environment that interacts more directly with us. Rural areas possess such opportunity since their prosperity depends, to this day, on the symbiotic evolutionary trait of nature. Upon arrival in a rural environment we encounter the presence of our society that relies on the persistence of the nonhumans surrounding it. We encounter the material flows that pass through the planet that ensure the continuance and evolution of the living tissue of the planet.?

"Our cities have become such isolators and destroyers of nature, that we would need an escape from their fabric to reach an environment that interacts more directly with us. Rural areas possess such opportunity since their prosperity depends, to this day, on the symbiotic evolutionary trait of nature."

The nonhumans are the fundamental substance that sustains life on our planet

The nonhuman realm contains the foundation upon which our society, our individual selves, life on earth, and even our cities are built. It is important to recognize that our human existence is deeply connected with the nonhuman elements. We have indeed become people capable of acquiring thoughts and decisions that influence the planet in a vast scale. Nevertheless, we can find the nonhuman when we trace the evolution of our minds and bodies. Bacteria, according to Lynn Margulis, are the building block of complex organisms. So their symbiosis and evolution created cells and organs, ensuring the proliferation of life towards the upcoming of ourselves. Central to this understanding is the discovery developed by Lovelock and Margulis who recognize the Earth as a complex and self-regulating system. Their remarkable work revealed that life has a main role in transforming and maintaining our planet into a dynamic and active living organism which in result maintains a continuum of life on earth. By embracing the perspectives of these nonhuman entities, we can escape the boundaries of anthropocentric (human kind being the center of existence) thinking and gain a deeper vision of the richness and diversity of life on Earth. Such an approach not only expands our understanding of the natural world, but makes it crucial for us to become aware that we are not the only active beings on our planet, and even more that our actions are having a profound impact on the very tissue of the planets that maintains life, as a collective.

The world cherishes itself, why shouldn't we too? A vision of learning to live with other entities

The theory of Gaia, intertwined with social disciplines, highlights that living beings are active and persistent entities that belong, together with humans, to the continuous material exchanging dynamics of our planet. A reality appears that consists of organisms and their environment coexisting mutually and shaping each other. We humans, and the nonhumans, are inseparable from these environments we inhabit. We depend on mutual prosperity. The dynamics between the material and nonmaterial worlds reveal a deeper interconnectedness, where the concepts of life, spirit, souls and a moving energy become expressions that bind us to the living entities of the world, and to the vast network of life. Donna Haraway's notion of making kin with other species embraces our entanglement with them, and more, recognizes that our survival is linked directly to their thriving. If architecture, rural, and urban planning are at this intersection, for they deal with and use so much of such nonhumans, a mutual interdependence of all beings and beyond becomes a key topic to bear in mind.

Socio-philosophical stories relating to humans and nonhumans cohabitation?

What can social and philosophical concepts teach us about the role of the nonhuman??

Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) offers valuable information into the role of the nonhuman in shaping our society. In the face of an ecological crisis, the social discipline is profoundly reevaluating anthropocentric perspectives and embracing knowledge that give the nonhuman an agency into one, ever-changing, collective network. In a nutshell this is ANT, which claims that our society too, is constructed through these heterogeneous networks, where both human and nonhuman actors play significant roles. This social theory emphasizes more on the interconnectedness of all elements in our environment and strongly shows the relational nature of life. As such, the interactions which we create with the nonhuman world, especially through architectural planning, have far-reaching consequences into different scales. We should have in mind this interconnectedness in a social level, things and beings affect us, and simultaneously we do the same to them.??

Additionally, for example, the concept of rhizome, developed by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, claims agency to the role of the nonhuman in affecting our daily interactions. Cities, nature, society, claim equal influencing power when they come too affecting and shaping the human mind. This theory offers arguments that the world beyond humans possesses reality too, transcending human centeredness. Scholars have acknowledged the heterogeneous nature that nonhumans belong to and their multitudes of influences. Deleuze and Guattari, Spinoza, Lefebvre, Bachelard, in their critique of space and the city, etc., all claim that the world out of the human subject is by itself a reality which is active in producing its own network of experience, a network shared and experienced by human and nonhuman perceiving beings.?

What can an indigenous perspective inform us about the role of the nonhuman? A spiritual realm of mutual dependencies

An indigenous perspective offers direct insights into who the nonhuman is, how do they relate to us too, and the mutual dependencies we share. Eduardo Kohn highlights the concept of spirit as inherent in both human and nonhuman beings, challenging the notion of a singular human-centered perspective. According to his research, the indigenous people, living in the rural areas of Ecuador, believe that the world outside themselves is as animate as themselves, made of various selves that extend beyond human boundaries. This perspective supports a symbiotic relationship with the surrounding nature where their group of humans is, and ensures harmonious coexistence with the environment. Kohn argues that this enchanted realm of the spirit emerges from the interactions between humans and nonhumans, emphasizing a shared responsibility for preserving this web of life. In this view, the soul goes beyond individual beings, but it is manifested in myriad forms connecting us all. We each make a difference in another being.?

"As soil gives the habitat for plants and microbes to thrive, our building structures can do the same, being of symbiotic drive with the nonhuman realm."

Writes Edward Kohn in his book, How Forests Think - Towards an Anthropology Beyond the Human. Through our actions therefore, we can either support a being to thrive and grow, or completely diminish their value and focus our selfish desire primarily. As soil gives the habitat for plants and microbes to thrive, our building structures can do the same, being of symbiotic drive with the nonhuman realm.??

Architecture, rural, and urban planning impact on the nonhuman?

Indeed nonhumans are out-there, and possess selves as we do. Indeed they affect us, as we do them, perhaps even beyond. And indeed the world which we occupy belongs to them, as much as to us. Our dependency is reciprocal, our knowledge of them should be expanded.

The building blocks of architecture are constructed on the back and substance of the nonhumans

Architecture begins with the idea and vision of a planner, who analyzes and observes the surrounding or territory that they want to impact and develop their conceptual and technical plans. These plans necessitate the use of physical material from the environment to be formed into tangible structures. As we observed before, that entity is as influential and active on the social and planetary collective, as we are. Without human intervention, architecture would be confined to living organisms who shape their environments for habitation. Indeed an outcome of architecture in this sense is a natural process occurring almost instinctively by living beings. But, the construction of cities on a large scale, initiated by the many people on the planet and our unique selfish desires, involves extracting so much planetary material and vast amounts of energy, a cause which is leading to a significant impact on Earth's biome. It is therefore essential for planners to acknowledge and incorporate the knowledge of the nonhuman environment into their designs in order to provide ethical and symbiotic architectural development. From this logic we can extract an important proposition that can remain in our considerations as we build in the future.?

“Our architectures are constructed of everything nonhuman, the planner's knowledge of their nature is mandatory if we are to achieve their ethical and just inclusion.”

Moreover, architecture is definitely not a static object, but a product of evolutionary processes intertwined with human civilization. While this article does not necessarily involve architectural theory, it seeks to initiate an understanding of relational architecture and planning through the presence of the nonhuman as co-producers and active agents in the life of cities. Every object, product, or component in this idea, contributes as an agent by influencing human behavior and shaping our daily interactions. The material we use, the landscapes we shape, the spaces we create are all intertwined with the living world around us, with the realm of spirits affecting and perceiving one another.?

In recognizing our dependence on nonhuman elements for architectural construction, we must therefore acknowledge our responsibility towards them. The unsustainable extraction and exploitation of planetary material poses significant catastrophic threat and ultimately can bring to the collapse of human survival, not to mention that the point we have reached thus far, has already caused a living being mass extinction rivaling the previous extinctions of the history of the planet.

Our habitats are animate, architecture is build full of life

Therefore, we must consider the nonhumans as an integrated structural component in architecture. If indeed our discipline uses massive amounts of material, and bearing in mind that this material, now is a nonhuman active agent, shouldn’t our profession open its knowledge to profoundly consider its being? Shouldn't we embrace the philosophical and scientific knowledge retrieved, and utilize it to provide more inclusive cities? Our profession appears to be shaped and responsible for the vast amount of nonhumans and humans reactions on different scales. If we take into account that 1. The agency of the nonhuman living entities is responsible for maintaining life on the planet, 2. That the nonhuman is an interactive thing that through cause and effect is experienced and forms our realities, 3. That the nonhuman as an object already anthropomorphised is turned into a product which we eagerly consume and allow it to direct our daily lives, and 4. That the nonhuman is a fundamental material substance which we must use to construct the structures of our civilizations, our professions' relationship to the theory and practical inclusion of the nonhuman is a mandatory addition to the process of planning our society, city, and prosperous rural areas!?

Can our profession be a representer of the myriad of voices of the nonhumans?

If we are to create inclusive cities, prosperous rural areas, ethical architecture, rich in biodiversity, and ensure persistence of life on our planet, we must bring forward the activity of the nonhuman as an equal voice when we consider their effects in the decision making of a planning process. This is a step that requires a simultaneous expansion of architectural theories, and a profound implementation in practical situations. With so much going on in the world, so much injustice, can architectural planning be a voice that situationally includes the entities which are present and active in territories? How can we create cities that nourish and sustain life in all its forms? Can we value the material not as a resource which we purchase for building, but an active thing which is a part of a bigger network in its own habitat?

There should be a message sent. That architectural planning can indeed be a voice to the myriad of actors which are present in a territory of interest. The roots of our cities are active and it is about time that we embrace them since they nourish our very own existence. After reading this article let us reflect a bit on the following points.

• We ought to recognize the active quality of the materials architecture manipulates and their impact on the environment.
• Design with a focus on connectivity and inclusivity, rather than purely economic motives.
• Preserve and enhance natural habitats to support biodiversity, the building block of life.
• Question growth-centric mindsets and prioritize ethics and justice in design decisions, by considering how our actions affect another entity? Are we increasing their power to be themselves or diminishing it through our decisions?.
• Embrace a spirit of collaboration with nonhuman entities to create more symbiotic and resilient environments.

The challenge still remains ahead. Such an article simply becomes a part of a network that advocates for an inclusive contribution of nonhuman and human agencies. We hold responsibility, every single one of us, for the world around us which we impact. And if this article were relevant to our thoughts, it could be helpful to the planet and society to pursue our curiosity into whatever realm of imagination that our ideas take us. Bearing in mind the essence that things are active and shape one another, we can seek better ways of creating a collective society that is nourished by care, ethical view, and responsible decision-making.