Non-Extractive Architecture: On Designing Without Depletion

The year-long research and exhibition programme “Non-Extractive Architecture: On Designing without Depletion” takes over the V-A-C Foundation Venice, curated by architect Joseph Grima and design research studio Space Caviar. The programme of research residency, workshops, lectures, publications addresses the basic assumptions of contemporary architecture to think of better solutions for the construction industry’s renovation. 

Today, the building and construction industries are responsible for 39% of the total carbon emissions produced by humanity. The hunger for non-renewable resources such as sand, water, stone and steel needed to urbanise the world at speed is irreversibly depleting entire regions, fundamentally transforming their nature into habitats incapable of supporting human and animal life. Non-Extractive Architecture is an attempt to question some of the basic assumptions underlying contemporary architectural production from a material and social perspective, rethinking the construction industry from first principles in the belief that better alternatives exist.