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. [Details available upon request]
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 180
- Dimensions: 16.5 x 22 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783035628159
- Publisher: Birkhauser Verlag
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects, landscape architects, and design researchers working at the intersection of ecological theory, multispecies thinking, and built environment practice.