„Maybe each human being lives in a unique world, a private world, a world different from those inhabited and experienced by all other humans. And that led me wonder, if reality differs from person to person, can we speak of reality singular, or shouldn’t we really be talking about plural realities? And if there are plural realities, are some more true (more real) than others?“
Philip K. Dick, „How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later“
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Resource consumption, inequality, poverty. In our work as architects we are surrounded by so-called ‚wicked problems‘ – social, cultural or environmental issues that, due to their complexity, can neither be precisely defined nor solved by simple actions. But how can we, as architects, critically engage with them, position ourselves? How can we even express criticism – or should it not rather be about „making visible“, about pointing out different realities?
In this seminar, we explored the extent to which utopian, speculative thinking offers us the possibility of going beyond architectural practice and devoting ourselves more to current, transdisciplinary problems and global or local processes of transformation. Step by step, following Philip K. Dick, we will pursue the question: „If there are plural realities, are some more true (real) than others?“
The following projects and theories were discussed in the seminar: Liam Young, Planet City | BIG, Masterplanet | Brandlhuber, Grawert, Hirsch, Roth, 2038, German Pavilion of the Architecture Biennale 2021 | Rittel&Webber, Wicked Problems | Netflix, Black Mirror | Dunne&Raby, Huggable Atomic Mushroom
This seminar took place in the winter semester 2021/22 in the Master’s (1-3) at THN. Image on the right: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_Global_Risks_Report_2021.pdf