Rethinking Materiality: Human Resourcefulness and Natural Resources

Anupama Kundoo discusses how architectural imagination must transcend design and enter the realms of materials science and economics where some of the bigger questions reside. Through extensive material research and experimentation we rethink materiality and critically examine the way the time value of money has nudged us towards code-based design and the industrialized production of building components and instead look at consumption of finite natural resources alongside their impact on human wellbeing and human resourcefulness. The act of building produces knowledge just as the resulting knowledge produces buildings.

Biography:
Anupama Kundoo graduated from University of Mumbai in 1989 and received her PhD degree from TU Berlin in 2008. Her research-oriented practice started in 1990 in Auroville has generated people centric architecture based on spatial and material research for low environmental impact while being socio-economically beneficial. Her body of works was recently exhibited as a solo show 'Taking Time' at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark. She has taught Architecture and Urban Management at various international universities strengthening her expertise in rapid urbanization and climate change related development issues including at Yale University and Columbia University. She is currently Professor of Architecture at T.U. Berlin.