designing unbuilding

designing unbuilding
on construction sites, contact zones and planetary agency
a lecture by
Marlene Wagner

In her lecture, Marlene Wagner examines the complex relations between architectural practice and representation across continents, bridging theory and practice, participation and collectivity. Drawing from her PhD research, “Mapping ‘Social Architecture’ – Critical Reflection and Methodic Experiment on Cross-Cultural and Trans-Disciplinary Practice,” she investigates transformative approaches through a critical re-reading within her own post-colonial archive. With selected transnational projects referred to as “New Social Architecture” and rooted in the “DesignBuild” movement of the early 2000s, she explores the knowledge culture of construction sites and questions the spatial concept of the contact zone. By sharing traces and narratives of beginnings, endings and entanglements she hopes to contribute to the discussion of the (im)possible mediation of planetary agency and effects of designing unbuilding.