Coproducing a New Imaginary of Situated Ecological Knowledge Using Vernacular Architecture.

One of my favourite things to do is play outside. I think as I have gotten older, I’ve come to realize that playing should never stop. The toys just get bigger, the stakes get higher, and you get to live in the things you build now. For the last 2 years, I got to play outside, all over North America. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out ‘Bus Life’ in the moving pictures tab.

 Each place I visited was kind enough to leave me with a lesson. Like everything, it came with its challenges, but nothing worth doing is easy. As I drove across North America, I met some of the most inspirational people. Here I was studying systems of sustainability through a screen while these guys were already building them. Alex from Knowlesville, New Brunswick taught me about food swales as an irrigation system for plants. Neil from the Laughing Coyote Project helped me reimagine education systems. Ethan in Belfast Maine showed me it was possible to raise a family completely off the grid. Each time I got back on the bus to travel to another state, I'd be left thinking about how beautiful life can be if we just encourage ourselves to think outside the box. I had a lot of time to do just that on my long drives, and I often would think about a paper I read from the University of Sussex’s Science Politics Research Unit (SPRU). I remember reading that one of the greatest challenges to realizing the Sustainable Development Goals, was identifying synergies (connections) between the 17 goals. The SSRP first proposed the idea of a ‘learning platform’ as a tool to harmonize and coordinate the efficient implementation of the SDG goals. The idea was intended to minimize the trade offs that occur when steps to achieve one goal hinders the achievement of another. Initially, I envisioned a bunch of people sitting around a desk sharing ideas. While that sounds like a great idea, the format was akin to institutions and conferences that already existed. I started to wonder how all those beautiful systems and people I had just encountered could coexist and mutually inform one another in relationships of reciprocity. How could these systems I'd encountered, intrinsically synergetic ones, fit into these ‘learning platforms’? Basically, how can I avoid sitting behind a desk rolling my eyes at economists and more time outside, getting inspired and building things with my hands?

What if we transitions this ‘platform’ into something resembling a ‘farm’. I wanted to build a place where analysis could be conducted in real-time - principles of permaculture, traditional architecture, ancient skills and structures could all be built into systems and analyzed. How does water harvesting look when scaled? What do decentralized networks of solar look like when connected and traded? What does financing look like? How much cheaper is infrastructural development when energy and food sovereignty put the power to make decisions back into the hands of the community? All of these questions could be answered, and used to inform policy. The farms are scalable and funding could mobilize research in specific areas, allowing grassroots innovation to take centre stage in a global landscape. It’s really important to me that whatever work I do expands what is ‘accepted’ as ‘knowledge’ in sustainability. In my humble opinion, the days in which we economize ecology needs to be put firmly in the rear view.

In one of my recent courses: Democratizing Science and Technology, I explored how something like a learning farm bears practicality in solving something like the Housing Crisis. 

Urban citizens globally often bear no responsibility for their production of energy and hold no accountability for the disposal of their waste. What was once an intrinsic and instinctual responsibility as stewards of the land has now become a commodity provided to us by either the state and/or private cooperations, each with their own neoclassical market-based agendas of extraction and exploitation (Jasanoff, 2004). This disenchantment with nature and abstraction of relationships with the land has left little space for situational and diverse knowledge that I argue, hold the keys to reducing our consumption of energy and regaining our autonomy to operate in harmony with the natural world (Aureli, 2018). 

Within this essay, I hope to bridge some gaps in scholarship and create a much-needed discourse within the housing and construction industry. Utilizing the 6 principles of biotechnic design of modern-day earth ships, I will demonstrate the webs of connection that make up a partial, location-specific critical knowledge of vernacular architecture that is plural and includes diverse peoples, epistemologies, and ontologies (Haraway, 1988). It is important to note that earth ships are simply one of the thousands of alternatives to ‘modern architecture’, which for this essay will be defined as structures that are built using manufactured or synthetic materials originating from natural resources nonindigenous to its built location. I argue that what is necessary for the well-being of the planet and its people is a decolonial approach to development, in which we both acknowledge the coproduction of social and epistemic orders as well as dismantle their relations to colonial modernity through the use of situational and plural knowledge. (Haraway, 1988).

 Earthships shares (6) principles of biotechnic design that together utilize both human and non-human inputs to generate passive energy, reuse waste, and reduce consumption.

(1) Passive Solar and Thermal energy is often generated by a south-facing wall of glazed windows that allows the structure to maximize natural light and sun exposure to regulate indoor temperature. Large, glazed windows in vernacular structures are uncommon due to the high energy needed to produce them and their lack of widespread availability until the 19th century (Zhai, Previtali, 2010). The idea of storing thermal energy from the sun, however, is a widespread technique used by a diverse group of peoples and can be traced as far back as 10,000 years ago in Mesopotamia (IA, 2023). One of the most famous examples of ancient vernacular architecture utilizing this concept can be seen in the Mesa Verde National Park, where the ancient Anasazi villages remain carved into the canyons of Southwestern Colorado. The villages were protected from the sun by the canyon overhang, which acted as a natural awning during the summer, but as the sun would sit lower in the sky during the winter, the village’s sandstone and adobo mortar had enough thermal mass to absorb the suns heat and slowly release it as the day fell into the night (CFSS, 2023). 

(2) Similar to the Anasazi Canyon villages, the thermal mass used to store heat in Earthships is often made with rammed earth. The earth typically gets shoved into recycled tires that have been collected from landfills, or mechanic shops. There are currently 4 billion car tires in landfills and stockpiles worldwide (Prinz MOA, 2021). Tires tend to decompose when exposed to high temps, sunlight, and oxidizing agents, and as a result, tend to release volatile chemicals (Ministry of Agriculture, 2021). This has become a major environmental concern, due to the improper disposal, illegal dumps and burning of tires, which can cause serious air, ground, and surface water contamination (Ministry of Architecture, 2021). The repurposing and utilization of tires as a building material at the end of their life cycle are to be favoured, as research from Humbolt State University claims that the tires are not exposed to the elements of decay in their building envelope, and as such, should not experience any off-gassing throughout the lifespan of the structure (Ministry of Architecture, 2021). 

  Once the base of the wall is filled with rammed earth, they’re usually plastered with adobe or cob, which is just a sun-dried earthen building material made of a mixture of loam, sand, clay and straw or hemp. The interior walls, and sometimes the roof are made from this adobe/cob mixture but utilize recycled cans and bottles to reduce the amount of earth needed by creating a sort of ‘cement matrix’ for the plaster to stick to (Interconnected, 2020). Earth construction products have the potential to reduce the energy used in the production phase of a building by 80–90%, and this efficiency increases with the scale of production (Morton 2007: Kadka, 2019). Not only does rammed earth reduce the energy needed to construct buildings, but it is a completely renewable resource that can be found anywhere globally. In the UK alone, “earth construction could reuse 24 million tons of waste soil” (Morton, 2008: Kadka, 2019). 

(3) To comfortably accommodate modern amenities, the earth ship’s design calls for an off-grid renewable energy production solution, which usually takes the form of solar or wind. As of 2020, approximately 60% of the world’s electricity was generated from the burning of fossil fuels, oil and gas. The grid-like infrastructure of urban settlements often locks residents into an increasing ‘social complexity’ where their autonomy is tied to and dependent on a well-functioning grid (Timmermann, Noboa, 2022). By embracing a diverse set of renewable energy technologies specific to the resources available in a geographical area, communities will no longer need to rely on petrol oil and gas companies. Energy sovereignty allows individual communities to build local capacity and agency that is specific to their localized values, through human and non-human interactions (Haraway, 1988). “Energy production systems that are built in autonomous modules allow for their user to gain independence from major energy corporations and secure energy sovereignty under adverse conditions” (Timmermann, Noboa, p.54 2022) 

“For indigenous people, each form of building and gardening came as a gift directly from the land’s spiritual entities, and down to them through their ancestors. Each was magically and perfectly suited to the specific place and their needs at the time, and these buildings were honoured and treated as venerable living things” (Martyn, p.16, 2022). The last three principles of the earthship’s biotechnic design are rooted in preserving and utilizing the greatest gift that the land can give – water. A pitched and grooved roof is designed to (4) harvest and filter rainwater and store it in cisterns for everyday needs. The house itself is often host to a (5) Greenhouse that will grow fresh produce year-round. Underground botanical cells run the length of the greenhouse and are fed by the household’s ‘grey’ water tank, which collects the water from the sink and the shower. These ‘botanical cells’ run the length of the greenhouse and are used to feed the plants. 6) The excess water that the plants do not use is then pumped into the plumbing for the toilets. The water flushed down the toilet, known as ‘black’ water, is usually collected into a septic tank. The overflow is typically funnelled into an ‘exterior rubber-lined botanical cell’ to contain the fecal matter and prevent it from seeping into the groundwater and the surrounding ecosystem (Interconnected, 2020). This exterior cell is often used to feed larger plants with trunks, like fruit trees, ferns, or even the grass on your property (Interconnected, 2020). 

In the 1970’s Architect Michael Reynolds was credited with the development of ‘Earth Ships’, a style of architecture that utilizes and embeds the unique characteristics of its landscape, climate, and natural resources into its design and functionality. The principles that underpin the ‘earth ship’ directly subvert modernity’s dichotomy of nature vs culture, in which dominant narratives of anthropocentrism reduce nature into a subservient to the human condition (Escobar, 1999: Latour, 1987: Lele, 1991). This division of the human and the non-human is seen in our relationships with our homes and is inseparable from how ‘sociotechnical formations’ “change the way we think about ourselves and our positions in the world” (Latour, 1987: Jassanoff, p.2, 2004). Approximately 56% of the global population currently resides in cities, and according to the World Bank, the urban population will more than double in the next 27 years (World Bank, 2022) The urban grid of rectangles and squares that occupy our cities, which seemingly come from ‘nowhere’ yet can be seen ‘everywhere’ currently produce 26% of energy-related emissions (Haraway, 1988) (IEA, 2022). The truth is: the grid-like organization of land was an ‘imaginary landscape’ that the British and European colonizers projected onto the land (Aureli,2018). Crucial to its widespread acceptance was John Locke, and his ideas of privatized ownership (Aureli, 2018). The legal doctrine of ‘Terra Nullius’ enabled the Crown to claim, ‘ownerless’ land that could be appropriated without committing an act of dispossession (Aureli,2018). While the colonizers do not face any legal repercussions for their crimes of dispossession, the planet and its species are now face to face with extinction, as can be seen by the fact that today, 80% of all species on earth only exist in indigenous territory, which I might add, only makes up 5% of the global population (Eriera: Brown, 2023).

As a result of this dispossession and reterritorialization, a large exodus of vernacular architectural knowledge developed through long-standing relationships to the land “that employ local technologies and local materials such as clay or mud, stones, timber, bamboo and thatch are experiencing a slow decay under the pressure of global modernization, westernization, urbanization and industrialization” (Chowdhooree, Das,p. 454, 2022). Western ontologies during the era of colonization and thereafter, directly contradict the traditional ecological ontologies that most indigenous groups use to make sense of the world (Miller, 2016). Eurocentric world views – what is now ‘Western’ thought – reflect an analytical and fragmented way of thinking that selectively cultivates meaning and authority through a traditional scientific process of deduction. Traditional knowledge systems of indigenous groups before the Europeans colonized and claimed the land as theirs, were that of an intuitive, holistic way of making meaning through the inexplicable and spiritual. Indigenous populations saw the world as a whole, not as a sum of parts (Miller, 2016).

The methods and philosophies of the Earthship stem from plural and diverse ontologies that can be adapted to the landscape and the people. Earthships are an example of the utilization of both modern technologies and vernacular architecture rooted in “a long-standing occupation of the land, a common language, and a history of struggles against dispossession, and a collective memory [which constitutes] indigeneity, the basis of autonomy” (Anderson,2009: Tallbear, 2013: Fuller, 2021). Even though indigeneity legitimizes sustainability, its development path has been tied into and entrenched in the coproduction of social norms and hierarchies of colonial modernity. Scientific objectivity in the form of codes and regulations is currently creating barriers to erecting more sustainable natural structure standards, as they do not recognize the situated knowledge of vernacular architecture as ‘legitimate’ or ‘valid’ for their systems (Alon, Loftness, Harries, Cochran, p.2, 2019). The techniques of vernacular architecture displayed in the 6 biotechnical design principles represent a baseline framework that is then augmented and tailored to communicate and work cohesively with modern scientific advancements in technology to create hybridized and autonomous systems.

 Systems of sustainability must draw more inspiration from cultural connections to the land, and its geographic and geopolitical contexts. Mi’kmaw elder Albert Marshal coined the used the word ‘Etuaptmumk’, which is Mi’kmaw for ‘two-eyed seeing’ as a guiding principle in learning to see with one eye, the strength of indigenous ways of knowing and with the other, the strength of Western science and technology (Marshal, p.335, 2012). What’s that saying again? 

“He who does not look back to where he came from, will not know where he’s going” - Jose Rizall. 

‘Those who do not learn from History are doomed to repeat it’ - Never is that more apparent than in today's political climate. Our imagined community - this society - is doomed.

 ^^ That was heavy… But it needed to be said. I also feel compelled to tell you, I don’t have all the answers. I often feel quite powerless to do it all, but every day, remind myself how beautiful life can be. How simple it can be. Not unlike the tenants of vernacular architecture. It seems we’ve forgotten the first rule of engineering: The fewer moving parts, the fewer things to go wrong. Complexity is inherent in natural systems, yet when you look at them, they’re instinctual, beautiful, and seamless. Why do you think that is? Perhaps it’s because, unlike us humans, the rest of the biotic community has acknowledged and embraced the fact that everything is connected to everything else. A sort of Anti-Oedipus, if you will.

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