Living Together: More-Than-Human Ecologies for Architectural Thinking asks what architecture becomes when plants and other species are treated not as decoration but as active agents — co-authors of space with legitimate needs of their own.
About This Book
This book is a sustained inquiry into multispecies architecture — design thinking that moves beyond the familiar ideals of permanence, monumentality, and human-centred progress. Drawing on materialist and ecological frameworks, it makes the case that architecture must become receptive in two senses: physically, by creating space for other species to inhabit and act; and intellectually, by attuning itself to the agency of more-than-human life. The authors argue that technocratic and theoretical design approaches remain fragmented, and position this work — titled Better Together within its argument — as a call for a more holistic, multispecies design practice. Essential reading for architects and theorists grappling with ecological thinking and the future of sustainable, co-habited environments.
Key Features
- 180 pages of theoretical and design-based inquiry into multispecies and ecological architecture
- Authors: Sonal Mithal and Akshar Gajjar
- Published by Birkhauser Verlag
What You'll Discover
- How architecture can be restructured to accommodate plant and animal agency rather than simply accommodate biodiversity as an aesthetic gesture
- The limitations of technocratic and purely theoretical design approaches to ecological architecture, and why a holistic framework is needed
- How materialist philosophy intersects with architectural practice to produce genuinely more-than-human spatial thinking
- Why established architectural values — longevity, monumentality, permanence — must be interrogated in the context of multispecies cohabitation
About the Author
Sonal Mithal and Akshar Gajjar are the authors of this collaborative inquiry into ecological and multispecies design thinking.
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 180
- Dimensions: 16.5 x 22 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783035628159
- Publisher: Birkhauser Verlag
Perfect For: Architects, landscape architects, and design researchers working at the intersection of ecological theory, multispecies thinking, and built environment practice.