Accattone Issue 8 confronts the concept of ‘negative commons’ — the zombie habits, desires, products and processes inherited from productivist society that contemporary culture cannot sustain yet continues to reproduce, examined through the lens of construction, time, use and change.
About This Book
This issue of Accattone takes as its critical frame the unresolved contradictions embedded in how we build and remake the world: the technical knowledge we carry forward, the systems we cannot quite abandon, and the material conditions we have yet to reckon with. Anchored by the High Tech Low Tech exhibition at EPFL Lausanne, the issue assembles an expansive field of contributors — architects, theorists, researchers, and practitioners — to interrogate what it means to construct responsibly within inherited constraints. Spanning architecture, urbanism, and material culture, it is essential reading for those engaged with questions of ecological transition, adaptive reuse, and the politics of technical knowledge.
Key Features
- 125 pages of essays, project documentation, and exhibition material drawn from the High Tech Low Tech exhibition at EPFL Lausanne
- Contributors include Clément Hébert, Élodie Degavre, DSCTHK (Jérôme André & Thibaut Blondiau), Oliver Burch, Kosmos, Fuminori Nousaku & Mio Tsuneyama, Antoine Angeard & Lise Duchamp, Lars Lerup, Pierre Leguillon, Sammy Baloji and Filip De Boeck, Baukunst, Andrea Branzi, Buckminster Fuller, Frei Otto, Cedric Price, Superstudio, Global Tools, and 50+ additional participants
- Published by Accattone
What You’ll Discover
- How the concept of ‘negative commons’ — the residual habits and infrastructures of productivist society — shapes contemporary construction practice and design culture
- Work and thinking from the High Tech Low Tech exhibition at EPFL Lausanne, bringing together diverse positions on technical knowledge, low-tech construction, and adaptive building
- Critical perspectives on figures including Oswald Mathias Ungers, André Ravéreau, Marcel Raymaekers, and Osamu Ishiyama, situating historical practice within contemporary ecological debates
- The intersection of architecture with collective tools, peasant workshops (L’Atelier Paysan), and counter-institutional design projects, tracing alternative models of production and use
About the Author
[Details available upon request]
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 125
- Dimensions: 240 × 320 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9782960253085
- Publisher: Accattone
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects and researchers engaged with ecological transition, adaptive reuse, and the politics of technical knowledge; students and educators working across architecture, material culture, and critical theory.