A Moratorium on New Construction by Charlotte Malterre-Barthes makes the case that pausing new construction — even momentarily — is not a retreat from design responsibility but a radical reorientation of it, demanding we reckon with extraction, redistribution, and what we already have.
About This Book
Every component of the built environment, from steel bolts to polyester insulation panels, is the product of extractive processes. Malterre-Barthes does not flinch from that premise. Instead, she builds from it a framework for rethinking space production entirely — not through incremental reform, but through a genuine suspension of the growth imperative. The book traverses housing redistribution, anti-extractive construction practices, curricula reform, and the exploitative culture of the design office. Positioned somewhere between a thought experiment and a call for action, it asks architects, urban designers, and housing advocates to imagine a built environment defined by what exists: inhabited differently, maintained carefully, and never demolished without cause.
Key Features
- 240 pages of critical theory, political argument, and design speculation on the future of construction and housing
- Published by Sternberg Press, ISBN 9781915609007
What You'll Discover
- Why the global enterprise of space production is structurally incompatible with climate and ecological limits — and what an alternative value system might look like
- How housing redistribution could function as a design discipline, rather than solely a political or legislative problem
- The argument for anti-extractive measures and structural changes to how construction materials are sourced, valued, and reused
- A critique of architectural education and office culture as sites that perpetuate the growth imperative — and proposals for rewiring both
About the Author
Charlotte Malterre-Barthes is an architect and academic whose work sits at the intersection of urban theory, housing politics, and environmental critique. Her scholarship interrogates the ideological and material conditions of space production at a global scale.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 240
- Dimensions: 152 x 106 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781915609007
- Publisher: Sternberg Press
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects and urban designers questioning the ethics of their practice, housing researchers, academics working in critical spatial theory, and design students ready to interrogate the growth assumptions embedded in their education.