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‘The inevitability of total urbanisation must be questioned, and the countryside must be rediscovered as a place to resettle, to stay alive; enthusiastic human presence must reanimate it with new imagination.’ Rem Koolhaas, Countryside: A Report (Köln: Taschen, 2020)
If we are truly heading towards near total urbanisation, where does that leave the countryside? UG13 is interested in ruralism and the challenges and opportunities that this environment provides in the 21st century. The countryside has undergone seismic changes over the past 100 years through mechanisation, agrochemistry, land management, mass migration and new types of industry emerging. Despite these changes, rural environments are woefully under-represented and misunderstood; it is time to shift our focus and examine the potential of this fertile territory.
Agriculture is broadly defined as the production of food and fibres through the explicit selection and husbandry of plants and animals. Ever since the first human settlements, architecture and agriculture have been dependent on one another. This year, as we experience food shortages caused by conflict, climate change and globalisation, UG13 looked to re-examine our relationship with agriculture and the countryside.
As a starting point, students were asked to plant a seed of rural conscience into the city by designing a monument in the form of a speculative structure, installation or device which might serve both humans, animals and plants.
On our field trip we travelled to the German state of Baden-Württemberg in Southern Germany to visit the fertile territory of the Black Forest. Until the middle of the 19th century much of the region was populated by small subsistence farming, carved out of the forest over centuries. Today Germany is one of the largest producers of agricultural goods in the EU; its farming is predominantly carried out by agribusiness consortia that cover vast territories.
It was François Cointeraux, a bricklayer from Lyon, who coined the term ‘agritecture’ as the cross-fertilisation of agriculture and architecture. Until his death in 1830 he was an advocate for the countryside and sought to reunite building and farming skills. In their final build projects students were asked to design and cultivate their own ‘agritecture’ based on their research.
UG13 students are encouraged to be anarchists in the manner of Russian geographer Peter Kropotkin, who mused that ‘Competition is the law of the jungle, but cooperation is the law of civilisation’. In this sense, students need to collaborate and cooperate while simultaneously building self-reliance and independence.