Restoring Reason, Beauty, and Trust in Architecture, Part 7: Architecture as a Tool to Improve Lives a Lecture by Anna Heringer

How can architecture elevate our communities? Join Notre Dame’s School of Architecture and architect Anna Heringer, honorary professor of the UNESCO Chair of Earthen Architecture, Building, Cultures, and Sustainable Development, for a discussion about leveraging sustainable, locally sourced materials and traditional techniques. Heringer’s globally recognized projects, like the METI Handmade School, demonstrate the social and ecological impact of community-led, place-based design.

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Transcript

1 0:00

Dear ladies and gentlemen, dear students, tonight I have the honor to introduce our guest speaker. Anna Heringer. My name is Markus Tubising, I am the Michael C. Duda Visiting Professor at the School of Architecture of Notre Dame, and usually I teach and research at the University of Applied Science in Potsdam, Germany. Maybe I was asked to introduce Anna Heringer today because we have several things in common. we're both from Germany, but I also want to point out that we are both from the south of Germany. We're both from Bavaria. I have a keen interest in Asia. So does our guest speaker today. And we also had a common time at ETH Zurich, just to name a few of the things we've have in common. Anna Heringer will, speak to us tonight about architecture as a tool to improve lives and correlate our architectural discipline with the idea of sustainability. This is a theme that the School of Architecture at Notre Dame is tackling actively, especially through the introduction of our Master in Historic Preservation we are very thrilled to have you here with us tonight. Anna Heringer was born and raised in South Bavaria and studied in Linz, Austria. early in her academics, she established a key interest in sustainable development work in South Asia, especially Bangladesh. Her university thesis School Handmade in Bangladesh Was realized through fundraising and with the assistance of the local community in Qur Northern Bangladesh. We're speaking of an area far in the north, about 150 miles northeast of New Delhi. After this primary project, numerous of her building designs throughout the world followed involving, local craftsmen and communities. as the Dipshika Improvement School in Bangladesh and the Training Center for Sustainability in Marrakesh, Morocco. Her work has been widely shown in museums and galleries around the world. She has received numerous renowned awards, such as the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, The Regional Holcim Award and the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture. And she has lectures internationally and taught at renowned universities, such as the Itihan Zirik, where I was able to closely follow her work in 2014. when she taught design studio together with Martin Rauch. In the context of climate change, addressing the potentials and the key role of architecture in this global challenge cannot be overemphasized, and it should unite our profession around the globe. Anna Heringer herself says, for me, sustainability is a synonym for beauty. A building that is harmonious in its design, structure, technique. and use of materials, as well as with the location, the environment, the user, the socio cultural context. This for me is what defines it's sustainable and aesthetic values. I think closer we possibly cannot get to the principles that our father of architecture, Vitruvius, declared in his 10 books on architecture, Our profession should be committed can be regarded as one of the earliest and most fundamental theories of sustainable architecture. We are thrilled to hear your lecture. Please welcome Anna Heringer.

2 3:43

Thank you for this wonderful introduction. thank you also for the possibility to do it online because I'm trying to avoid flying if possible, For some projects, I need to fly like for Ghana where I'm soon, but I'm happy if I don't have to hop in a plane for a lecture luckily we have our digital tools these days. to me, architecture is a tool to improve lives. I'm very much aware that the opposite is true that, through our profession, we contribute to climate change in a massive way. we also foster social injustice because we often are in the service of those who are rich and in power, but I'm a stubborn idealist. I believe we can do better with our profession and we can build up buildings. And at the same time, we can build up communities and we can do this in harmony with nature. this photo shows, a study trip with the students of ETH Zurich. It was the end of October and it was really cold. It was still the frost on the ground at 3 p. m. at one point, we surprised the group with the fact that there was no accommodation, no hut, nothing booked for the night. And that it was the challenge, to build your own shelter with whatever you could find as future architects. the reactions were quite mixed in Switzerland. you'll find the outdoor freaks who think, ah, we're going to build the hut as we did when we were young, going to sleep in it, great. then there were. Like the middle portion was thinking, yeah, there must be a plan, there must be a plan B, but there was no plan B. And then the third one, we're just, utterly shocked, but everyone did it. Results were not really luxurious, sleeping units, but, it was really nice to see all the students the next morning. They were bursting full of confidence. And saying, Hey, we survived it. We did it. it was a great learning experience for us teachers, that, there are so many resources given by nature for free. all you need is the sensitivity to see those resources and the creativity to use them. I found myself in a similar situation. I was a development learner in Bangladesh when I was 19 years old. I lived in a Bangladeshi village and, learned from a local NGO, DeepShika. what I learned there is that the most effective strategy for all good development is always to look at the resources you have in your direct surroundings. within yourself, in your network, and trying to make the best out of these resources without depending on external factors. this is what I tried to translate into architecture. seven years later, I designed a school for that particular village Rotorpur. in terms of materials, I didn't have to look far. They were right under my feet. The mud, the dirt, the bamboo that was growing all around. in terms of energy sources, I focused on people. when we think of energy sources these days, we think of oil, solar, gas, wind. but we mostly forget that each and every one of us is a source of energy too. a growing source with 8 billion people. a creative one that also wants to be needed and used because otherwise, we create a social problem. creating work is always an essential part of all the projects I'm doing. we had a completely unplugged site. mixing machines, we had cows and water buffaloes. We only had four drilling machines that we would charge in the night. And other than that, it was completely unplugged and only muscle energy. it was a completely different, soundscape on site. It was really beautiful. It was much less aggressive somehow when I compare it to the sites, that we have here in Europe now. After six months of construction, the school looked like this. the school was my diploma project in Linz and got realized together with IK Roswag. I want to say that, it's the best moment when you graduate. I know we have an advantage in Europe because we don't have to pay back student loans, but it was best to go out in the field directly from university with all the ideals that I had in mind, testing them in the field, testing them in reality, finding my own that was something that I would really recommend normally we step in the footsteps of the previous generations, but it's also the generation caused the climate change. So finding new ways, new solutions is really crucial. we kept the tradition to sit on the ground in the traditional rural areas and through this hole in the back wall come to the cave area. I'm always asked, did the kids participate in the design and no, they did not because, it's not easy to design a school. And that's why we trained to be architects for many years. But I think what's very important is to make the participation in some physical way, which I talk about later. what I did very carefully is observing kids. I also did research in my own childhood, own inner child, what are the spaces that I liked when I was a kid. the briefing of the client was very clear. He wanted to have a school where the kids go in every day and are excited to get in. feel comfortable relaxed to open up the senses and are open for new things. so I was trying to remember, what were the spaces that I felt really protected, that I felt really comfortable and safe because these are the moments where you are able to open up for new things. I think these are pretty archaic spaces. it's like the mother womb or the cave, it could be a crown of a tree, where you're protected from all the leaves. But very important is that you have the full overview of the things that are going on, or you're sitting underneath a table with the table glows protecting you from the views of others, but acoustically you hear everything. So you have the same situation that the caves, you're protected, but you always have the overview and the connection to the group. You're never excluded. And that was important. the school respects different pace of learning and, there are always people that are faster and doing their tasks, finishing them faster. it was important to give Those kids a chance, to grab a book, retreat in the caves and start, working on their own and not giving pressure to the other kids and, pressure to finish soon. and so it's every, it's very much working in that way. They're also used for meditation playing and breakup rooms, when you're on a split teams, it really works in various ways. On the top floor, it's more the opposite. it's the overview, it's the treehouse. It brings the lightness in, also the colors and that's the opposite, the overview And the kids all signed with the names on the doors. Could imagine it's a blackboard scribbled with all the names they rightfully signed in Bengali with their names because they also helped building the school. And this is the part where the participation for me comes in through all the projects that I did, this is by far the most effective and joyful participation This is one of the reasons why I love mod, it's such an inclusive material. You cannot work with sophisticated tools that could harm you, or toxic materials. I guess you all remember how it feels like having your hands in soil, having it in clay, having it in mod. it's a beautiful feeling. it's something very joyful. during the mornings, they had normal classes. in the afternoons they would usually have creative classes like clay pottery works and so on, so they had pottery work in a slightly bigger scale. of a building. And, I guess you can imagine how it feels when you're a small boy or girl standing in front of your school and knowing that, ha, I built this thing, with just my muscles and the dirt underneath my feet. That gives such an enormous boost of confidence in your own potentials, in, in the team around you. in the local materials that usually have a poor image, especially mud. it's often branded as not, durable but it can be very durable. in all cultures, in all climate zones, we have buildings built out of pure clay that are there since hundreds of years. There are certain rules, which is a good foundation, a good cover from the top, a good material mix, good craftsmanship. And then those building can stand for a long time. And to me, earth is really the champion when it comes to sustainable building materials, plasterings as floors, as ceilings in combination with wood, for example. It's the only material that you can use, and reuse, without any loss of quality. usually when we talk about recycling, we talk about downcycling, but with clay, it's just adding water. and then you mix it again and you get same quality, absolutely same quality. And if you need to repair something, if a corner gets broken, you just take the broken part, make it and then put it back and it looks just as before. if you don't need the building anymore, you return it back to the ground it came from and plant a garden on top. And that's for me, really the circularity that is amazing. When it comes to economic sustainability, it was beautiful to observe, how the workers invested their share of the building budget. every evening, get their salary, and often we would go to the local market together and I could see how they spent their share of the building budget. They bought vegetables from the neighbors, got the bicycle repaired, or a new blouse or sari from the tailors. the money was reinvested in the community, and the result of the budget was not just the school building, but it was a catalyst for local development. that is what made me happy because if I had built that school in steel or concrete, that money would have been exported and lost for the community. for me, when it comes economics, the main question is always who gets the profit? This Cui Bono question. I think it's really the question, who gets the profit? when I'm at the end of my career as an architect, make a sum up of all the building budgets that went through my hands and as architects, we are in charge of large budgets, really, millions of dollars. we have power in our hands and the choice of a building material ultimately also defines who's getting the profit. this is something that we sometimes forget. And I think it's very crucial. We have a lot of social impact through the choice of material and technology. I built several buildings village in Rotopur, and that's the last one. And the first ones that I built are very rectangular, like straight walls, straight corners. It was important to prove that you can build, precise, architecture, with modest local materials. with that building that is a center for people with disabilities, I wanted to show that we are not all followed in the normal pattern, but that there are people that break out of the mold. that building really also breaks out of the mold and dances in curves, and it wants to celebrate this diversity that we have. when you approach the building, the first thing is the ramp that winds up all around the building people asked, Hey, why do you need a ramp? it's the only ramp in that area. And it brought the inclusivity so much at the forefront. And that is something I love about architecture that it can make visible concepts that are usually difficult to explain. with architecture, with one glimpse, you can get it. And that's, a very powerful part of our profession. These are the therapy rooms and the ground floor. And underneath the ramp, there are caves, but they're differently shaped than the ones of the Metis school. You can actually glide in from the ground and then you have to move your body much more, you have, muscles are much more triggered. It's much more difficult to move through this case than the other one. And it's a trigger of muscle coordination. So the building itself becomes a tool of therapy And normally when there are tools of physical therapy, you climb up, you climb down. And this is a boring thing. But with that one, you discover a little universe. this is how the ramp in bamboo and clay, by the way, there is no stabilization in the clay. It's a hundred percent clay, just water added and some straw, on the top floor, there's the workshop for diptych textiles. usually as an architect, we're responsible for the building, for the vessel. But in that case, I'm also responsible of the program that happens in, in, in this building. during the many years that I came back to Bangladesh, since 1997, I've been there almost every year. you wonder, about the brain drain the rural to urban. migration what I see is that the settlement factors are mostly influenced by the carbon sector. we always think, it's the planners designers, architects who shape spaces, but actually, we all shape spaces through the way we shop, through the way we consume. And this is something that I would like to put awareness on that, we create everything that we buy, especially our clothes. There is a spatial expression. in it. And, the way our clothes are produced usually, come along with not very humane conditions. And I saw that many women had to leave. The villages where they had independence and, quite a good life quality ending up in factory spaces that, are not a fair way to live. Why do they end up there? It's because, the land resources are not enough anymore to feed the family. So they need a second economic leg and don't usually find it in the villages. that's. Why NGOs and a lot of development organizations are training women, under the umbrella of women empowerment, they're training, 30 women every two months, every three months. you wonder how many tailors can a village take, but finally they end up in the factories to produce our cheap clothing. that's something I'm not happy about. as an architect, I find I'm at my limits with my tools. So I'm together with friends and tailors and textiles designer, we started the initiative of the textiles. where we produce textile art and fashion. the working conditions are completely different than in the factories. And these are some of the products that we're doing. We also do exhibitions to raise awareness on this topic. This was part of the Biennale in 2018 under the motto free space. We also document our own, architecture projects on those, saree blankets. this one I particularly like It's the portrait of the village of Rudrupur. the blue dots you see are the ponds, for fish cultivation bathing and cleaning but, they are at the same time the excavation sources for the clay used for building the houses. the dark green spots are the bamboo growing on Almende area. So you have the building materials in your direct surrounding or underneath your feet. And then of course, the landscape is for, of course, a lot also for food cultivation. So fooding, housing, and in that village, also clothing is, and I think these are three very important sectors, to lead a sustainable life. They are very closed and small circles. No matter if it's architecture or textiles, the principle is always the same. It's local materials, local energy sources, craftsmanship, plus global knowledge. knowledge information should be, everywhere accessible. And that's the fantastic thing with our technologies, like Zoom that we can have access to information and knowledge. it's important to break it down and see, how can I apply it to the local conditions? how can I create with that knowledge and local materials a unique solution tailored for the specific place? We're switching to China now. I was invited to take part at the Bamboo Biennale together with Ken Gokuma, Simon Welles, and Van Drangia. the briefing of the clients was to show that bamboo can be modern material, can be a contemporary material. I was in charge of these three youth hostels. the core that I designed was built out of clay and stones. It's fireproof. You have the utility rooms in it and attached to this, core, there are the sleeping concourse for the boys and girls outside a very expressive shape of bamboo. normally when we think of, of sustainability, we think of limited resources. But, when you're built with materials that are there in abundance and bamboo and clay are there in abundance, then, of course, you can have also very expressive shape and the nature of nature is not limitation. The nature of nature is abundance. these are the cores out of rammed earth and stone. you might think, maybe that works in a small rural area, But these people have lived. in vernacular structures before. this trend to exchange natural building materials with concrete is happening all around the globe. In China, it was in a very short time, in a massive scale. It was like in a handful of years between 2011 or 13, China consumed more cement than the United States in the past century. it's not just China. this is happening all over the world and we cannot continue because we don't have the resources for that. And it's not just, the energy that we need to produce the concrete, the steel, it's also the energy that we need to make it, a comfortable indoor climate. So we need air conditioning, much more than we needed, for example, in clay or earth buildings. If you think it's just possible in small rural areas, then look at this one. This is Shebamim, Yemen. This was five, it's 500 years old, this town. And I would say if this was possible 500 years ago, we should be able to do this nowadays as well with all the technologies we have, with all the know how and information, we should be able to build it as well again today. how would you do that? you need other tools and methods. this, for example, is, a factory for prefabricated rammed earth elements in Schlinz, where I'm at the moment. It's the workplace of Martin Rauch. he developed big machinery. like a rammed earth plotter that plots, 40 meters of rammed earth wall, this wall is cut into pieces, naturally without any additional energy. then, it's stapled on the sides to load bearing buildings. And where does the material come from? It's just normal excavation material from various sites. In Austria, about 65 percent of all construction waste is excavation material and. Some people aire, they did the research, how much masters it's alone in, in El de France, around Paris. So it is really lots of millions of tons of material. I remember when we did the structure in front of the GSD at Harvard, we also took excavation material from Boston. there is a lot of material around right now we pay for dumping this material. If we all look for the green concrete, this new super material, that can do all the tricks. It's carbon neutral, can be made in high tech modes of construction, low tech modes of construction, you can even mix it. It's available everywhere on this planet, given for free and we dump it. it's just incredible that we do I think there are better ways to use that material. we're coming to the Campus St. Michael in Traunstein in Germany. We are building one of the largest structures so far. the central building is out of rammed earth, and we're using prefabricated rammed earth techniques the little one on the side is made out of wood, out of timber structure and here you see the blocks. They're literally stapled on top of each other, by a line of clay mortar. There is no iron in it. it's a very archaic, massive structure these blocks are retouched by making the joints wet putting the same material in, closing it, and then you can retouch it. You don't see the blocks anymore. It's a completely monolithic building without any joints. We also did a lot of participation in that one. I'm always trying, because this is what I learned from building in the global south, that you bond people when you do those kind of participatory, accents. you cannot build load bearing structures with it, but you always find niches and possibilities to include the future users. hopefully in half a year, the building looks like this. We are already pretty far into construction. this is another project in Germany. It's the Rosana Gestas. an extension of an Ayurveda clinic designed together with Martin Rauch. It also won the European Bauer's award. it's in a very sensitive area, an alluvial forest. we took the materials from the Alluvial Forest, which is willow, timber, and inside a lot of clay and earth. since it's very sensitive, we didn't want to make it very architectural, we wanted to make it much more organic. more like a nest inside it's a very calm atmosphere it definitely supports, the healing process because usually we enter a room and we feel it's disconnected to nature, but the feedback that we get from people is when they enter the rooms, they still feel very much connected to nature and embraced by nature. And it's also a lot of people go there who are close to burnout, who are, really exhausted or sick. in those situations, to be surrounded with materials that are very shiny, that are monochromic, that are perfect, is even more difficult. You feel even more as an alien. And being surrounded with materials like clay have their cracks, their wrinkles, some sort of inhomogenic surface. It makes you feeling much more part of nature. And, if you want to build in harmony with nature, really sustainable, then we also have to accept that death and decay are part of nature too. And this is probably the part that is the most difficult to accept because we try so much to avoid the topic of death, of decay. We try to be as perfect as possible. We try to neglect aging and all sorts of things, and we try to be so perfect. this quest for perfection causing this mental exhaustion that we have. I think we should let go of this pressure of perfection and also accept imperfection as well as decay, which is a hard part, but I think part of life, part of the game. I think these are the building materials of the future wood or bamboo and fibers for insulation, natural fibers. We stay in the Alpine region, in Vorarlberg, Austria. together with Anka Dürer, Martin Rauch and Sabrina Sommer, I was commissioned to design a prototype for a space for giving birth. I was like, wow, I never thought, that there are still some white spots on the landscape of architectural typologies. we have spaces for almost every purpose. But we somehow forgot the most important and most creative act a human being can do, And it's also, because both medicine and architecture was a very male dominated field. So this topic of giving birth solved on a functional level. You can go to the hospital. But that is not really giving importance to that moment of giving birth. And if you, imagine, baby's coming out of the warmth where it's dark, where very cozy. it comes out in this bright light. in the hospital. That, of course, is a shock. And then, all this sort of cold materials. And then you have the mother, who needs to open up. It's all about opening up if you give birth. And then you're surrounded with materials that are extremely hygienic, but not at all, that you want to touch it's the opposite. You just want to retreat inside. So it's not very supportive to the birthing process. So we came up with the idea to build a cave, an earth cave, an earth wamp. And we couldn't find sponsors, we asked a lot of companies, we couldn't find any. But there were 400 women in that rural area that said, We want that prototype to happen. and they did not sponsor the money and the material, but they also sponsored the time and the skills. So we had a lot of participation on the site as well. it's prefabricated in clay bricks with fibers. this shape would resolve in the rainy climate in Austria. So the structure was covered with lots and lots of wooden shingles, which is traditional in that area. We used it in a bit of a twisted way with different colors and formats, and it's very organic structure in a way. This is the floor plan. This is the test of the site. it's of course very small because we didn't have much budget, but one of our architects is also midwife on Kadir. So she tested different birthing positions and this is how it looks from the inside. So it's almost a kind of a sacralic place and it's of course also gives space to the miracle that's happening when new life is created. This is how it sits in the landscape. It has a garden with herbal plants around it, that are specifically, supportive for the female body. the building is used for discussions, workshops and so on. so they do this inside, but also outside around the building. And this is how it sits in the landscape. Of course, ideally it would be located next to a hospital. Yeah. When, just going back when we were designing there and we were so many women on the site, I must say I was longing for the integration of more female aspects in architecture. It's not just about women in architecture. It's about integrating female aspects. It's not. about the efficiency and, the higher and the better and the, the more, most modern material and exploiting new resources it's very much also about the process and how the process is designed. It's about the care, and how an aim and a building is erected, not just, that it is erected. The process is really important and the care factor and the intuition. this is something I'm lacking in architecture. especially in education, we are so trained in, in analyzing, in being, articulate and whatever, but we are not so trained to listen to our intuition. if a design is born in the head or out of empathy intuition. you can feel it. We're going to Ghana now where I'm also in charge, for a campus for the Salesians of Don Bosco. this, is based on efficiency and control not on intuition. this master plan was given to me that was a master plan that is implemented so many times in, not just in Ghana, it's in many countries it's implemented like this. The basis, is not, the cultural context, but the Roman military camp. about, the overview, control. and discipline. on the right side is the traditional setting, The earth architecture is very much alive there. You have all sorts of buildings, they're rectangle around different shapes and sizes and proportions. And yet, so often when institutions are coming it's the Catholic church, it could be other religions. It could be governments. NGOs. aid organizations, usually they come with, a very functional scheme and also, ignoring the local building materials. So what I did, I took the master plan, cut it out in clay and then did a very intuitive clay storming, that's how I call it, and tried to bring in this elements and this qualities and atmospheres of the traditional homesteads So this is the plan of the campus. with lots of agricultural also involved. And this is how the site works. it's completely low tech it's the Atak Palme technique. It's a local technique that they use in, in, in Ghana and also part of Ghana. And, so the building goes up completely low tech, no electricity in the beginning, I was very strict. I had designed the windows in a normal rectangle shape. then the women came and started plastering the building they plastered it round. You don't plaster with your hand. You don't plaster like this, you plaster like this. And then suddenly the windows become a completely different shape. And that's the co creation. That's the most beautiful part. these things are coming in this aspect the local genius and the knowledge of the people and just the knowledge of the hand. That comes in and that I find very beautiful and very authentic also. when I showed this picture to the, bosses in Accra, they were like, Oh no, what can we do? The building doesn't look so shabby. I was thinking, Oh my God. Is it really bad? I was really uncertain, then this picture, exactly ten days later, was hanging in an exhibition I had in Madrid, Norman Foster came to the opening, and he stopped exactly at this picture, and said, Ah, this facade is a piece of art. And this is the two mindsets coming together. we love this authenticity. we can see the power that is in there. for someone who has had a lot of training to get away from handmade things into industrial ones, it's very difficult to adjust with the idea of this manual aspects. And the craftsmanship. So we are in the process of making compromises, making angles more straight, but not losing the tactile aspects and the poise that is poetic that's in those structures. So it's a process. in the end, my compass needle is always orientated towards, my gut feeling. there's always a reason for A or for B, but it has to feel right. the process is just as important as the outcome is part of our Laufenmanifesto that I did together with colleagues from all over the world. I show the last project that, I designed together with Martin Rauch. It's an altar for this cathedral for St. Peter in Worms. It's a 1, 000 year old cathedral. after the second, Council of the Vatican, the original altar that was built from Balthasar Neumann, one of the, the most important baroque architect in Germany. And of course it was very difficult to put something permanent in front of that, but to some Norman Altar and, and one priest of the other just transferred this task to the next generation and they had a very basic wooden table in front of it. But for the 1000th, anniversary the community decided now it's time for a real altar. So they made a competition. in the final round, there were really beautiful objects, made out of steel and prefabricated, the idea was to bring it in the church, install it there, and that's it, Martin and me, we came in and said, We don't come with the final product. We come with tools and we take the local soil and would recommend ramming it with the community. And that's what we did. And what was really fascinating was that it worked just the same way it works in Ghana or as it works in Bangladesh. this is so much bonding, in the beginning, for example, it was the idea to bring in. historic aspects of the town. we had from the Roman empire, there was a stone coming in and then some other castigators were sending items. So it was all very official. It was documented. It was in the radio. And then people started to bring their own personal items. they would bring the necklace from the grandmother, the amulet, an important letter that was really dear to them, or newspaper articles of events of the community that they were proud of, or the best honey, the best wine of the area. It was really beautiful to see how much this altar became, their object. And one of, for me, the most emotional moments was, I had some Indian soil at home and I brought it to Indian nuns in Germany. the moment they put in their soul from the Indian soil, they're like, really the tears were running down their cheeks and you could feel so much, earth is much more than just a building material. It's home, it's an element, something archaic and we have such a deep connection to it if we consider how many songs rhymes we have and we even call it Mother Earth, it is a very important element. Kids came, they mixed the clay with their fingers, they enjoyed it so much to have their hands in the dirt and then they wanted to have pink glitter. The priest was not so amused. He was concerned that the altar would glitter in pink, which wasn't the case in the end, but the kids had a blast. they were rhyming with their feet, singing. It was really wonderful. And then the moment comes when, the chicken comes out of the eggshell, the shuttering comes off and you can see, we couldn't let go of the baby. That was just our thing. we had to pamper it all the time. We had to touch it all the time. There's so much energy in this thing. And this is what we sometimes forget, when we talk about participation, we think of you can vote for option a, or we can vote for option B, but there is no energy input of us in it the happiness factor and the satisfaction factor is linked to how much energy and effort you put into something. you cannot build something alone. you always need other people around you and have a communal awareness. It's a very natural thing and it is something that really bonds people together. when we think of the past as a society, we had the traditions to build our own structures. We built churches, we built temples, city halls, schools, and most of all, we helped building each other's homes. So we were part of that. Of the neighborhood, physically part of the neighborhood. And that was really uniting. And this picture is very symbolic to me with all the gold and the marble and the precious materials in the background in our parts of the world, if we are honest, we're not lacking material things, but what we like mostly is good relationships. we have a purpose and aim together. this is something a well designed architectural process can also deliver and offer. And that for me is something very important that I learned from the Global South that we need to integrate in our parts of the world as well. We all learned, form follows function, but with this pressing challenges that we have with the climate change, with the growing social injustice, we cannot solve this on a purely functional level. to me, sustainability is not a question of technologies, resources, or money. It's much more than that. If I compare, building here in the global north, especially to other parts in the world, what is very obvious here is that we base our decisions so often on fear or on greed. And this is the worst thing to design. as a basis of decisions. there's only one thing that is stronger than fear. And that is love. if we take our decisions in design, in life, out of love towards others, towards nature, then I believe sustainability happens in a completely natural way. And that's why form follows love. Thank you.

1 37:46

Thank you, Anna Heringer, for this wonderful lecture and, for reminding us that, sustainability is not only about what we do, but also how we do it and how we live. the changes we are addressing go far beyond the system of architecture. It's also the way we interact with each other. before I ask the audience, to bring forth their question, there's a very personal question I would like to put forth, which you perhaps, could answer the best. Having spent much time in Bangladesh and India, we often hear two versions of the society there. On one side, we say that, Bangladesh and India is in a way already a repair and use culture. There's many aspects of reusing materials that are to be found. within the culture. I've seen so much, pollution and garbage and, environmental damage, especially in the south of India. Where would you locate, the situation that you have worked in more? how can we picture what you have seen?

2 38:53

Yeah, of course, that's true. In rural areas, it's much more to recycling and reusing and repairing. When I came there first in 1997, I was so amazed of the ability to create the everyday things on your own and repair them. that was real resilience. in the cities, there is a lot of waste before you didn't have the plastic materials, there was just no access for that. And now you have it all around and people are just throwing it as if it was organic waste. And that's a huge issue. to avoid plastic a huge battle. And to raise the awareness for that is really critical.

1 39:29

Yes. And as you say, the synthetic materials, the plastic is also, an everyday part of our building culture. we install a lot of these materials by building the way. we built. So today we're going to change the motors a little bit so that Anne Heringer can see you asking the questions. please come forth to the podium so that, you're being filmed by the camera if you have the first questions. Please.

4 39:54

thank you so much. my name is Davies Kikundi, a graduate student here at the University of Notre Dame. My question is about the perception of, vernacular architecture, not just the, users. due to modernism and the effects of modernism and people wanting to live in a very aesthetically pleasing and also it's a wave that everyone wants to be in a modern space. So what's the perception of these people about the building and the life cycle of the building, after a few years. They might want to replace this same building that. is built in a vernacular way.

2 40:30

Thank you, David. in Bangladesh, they have, two expressions for buildings, for architecture. One is like the locally made mud house, and then the real architecture is called building, the English term. So I always ask them, are our structures? like the mud houses or are the buildings? And it's very clear. They call them buildings. the architecture and design can uplift, the perception. that's the tool we have everyone wants to be proud of a building they live in. it's a prestigious thing. So we, as designers, we have to react on that. longing on, and on that kind of need for prestige. the design is one part and participation is the other part, when you're physically part of the building, you own it, you are part of it. And in Ghana, I learned something new. they call it charged. they have empty objects, they have no soul, and then they have, and the clay walls, they see it as the keeper of their emotions the engineer, Lorzegato, with whom I'm collaborating on this project, told me, when a person dies, usually then the body is brought out and then the spiritual person comes in and He asked the clay walls, the mud walls, if the death was a good one, or if there's something still to resolve. And the mud walls are telling that. And it's the connection to Mother Earth. It's the connection to the mother womb, the kind of the archaic mother womb. So it is something that, people in the rural areas can very much relate to the workers like it a lot. The villagers, the workers. Those who are considered middle class and have been brought up in concrete houses and concrete schools, for example, have difficulties. I grew up in a very beautiful, old, like historic surrounding. And then I moved to my studies to Linz and I moved into a concrete building and I felt like I have to shut down some senses to, to, I really felt like, okay, I have to desensitize myself, in the beginning, I felt really hurt. I'm probably a bit oversensitive, but I think everyone feels things like this. people are already, shut a bit and then they have really difficulties to, they were always told, this is how good modern architecture is supposed to look suddenly it doesn't work like this anymore and turns things upside down and there's kind of changes always difficult to navigate but I think it can be tackled with the two things that we have as tools, which is beauty, a very strong. motivator. And participation. we are in the process in Bangladesh. It works very well. they keep the building made the school next year. It's 20 years old stands. They're very strong and they keep it very good in shape and they love it. Things need time to change, the Global North formulated an ideal of an architecture. with the storyline and the narrative that it's, you have a comfortable, happy, safe, healthy life. this idea contributed massively to climate change social injustice no one's correcting this narrative. I think it's about time that we do.

5 43:35

Thank you very much, Anna, for that, really moving talk. I found it beautiful. the feeling of love as this last quote, articulates is palpable in your work. I have two questions, one follow up from the previous question and then something different. my first question has to do with, what you called low tech building. I'm a historian of architecture, and when I talk about earthen architecture in my history courses, I think there are a lot of assumptions that low tech architecture equals primitive architecture, this is an assumption in the developed world. how would you counter that narrative, that's a pervasive assumption that a lot of people have about this material that you so beautifully work with. my second question has to do with, I wondered if you could speak a little bit more about this idea of following one's intuition, And your experience coming to that conclusion and trusting. one's intuition. at what point in your career did you have that feeling like, oh, this is a positive thing that I'm following, and how do we encourage our students to do the same? Thank you very much.

2 44:42

Yeah, about the low tech, I'm often asked, Anna, do you want to send us back to Stone Age or what with your mod and so on? Of course. That's not the case, for me, it's not a question how old the material is. It's the question of our creative ability to use it in a way that it meets the dreams and aspirations and needs of the current society and, can be built very low tech and can be still a sophisticated modern architecture that has nothing to do with each other. and for me, yes, mod is in a way, a low tech material, but with a high tech performance, Balancing the indoor humidity perfectly, acoustically well, easy to repair, You know, so many things that Earth can do much more than a naked concrete wall. and still we see this primitive material. So there's also a narrative that needs to be changed. I think it can be changed through good modern architecture. That's, where you see good examples. Pilot projects, public buildings where you go in. I'm very happy that we have now this large, structure in Germany that is a public structure where people can go in, drink their coffee while it's storming outside snowing outside and raining and they see, the building is not resolving, it's standing strong. I think we just need these examples. the second thing about intuition, I wrote a book about it from Wallace Love, Building by Intuition. designing is constant decision making. We all know that we take the best decisions out of a gut feeling, out of intuition. I realized several years after, finishing medical school, After getting these awards I was still waiting for someone, a teacher an architecture critique a curator or a journalist, to tell me, this is good or this is bad, until I understood, hey Anna, you feel it yourself when something is good, when it feels right, We all know that feeling. we're so trained to focus outside voices. it's really training to trust yourself, get rid of this constant inner judge And when I'm teaching, I'm doing the clay storming with students. We do four or five days, working with our hands on large clay models. you work with two hands, so you activate both hemispheres of the brain, when you build the model with styrocutter glues or wood It's difficult to do. you need time to fix it and once you have it, you don't want to change it. When you have the clay, you can so easily change it. You make it large. you get the impulse. you feel it this is too much. This is too high. You get directly the impulses from the model In the detail at the same time, you are having the full overview of the model is completely different than designing on the screen or designing two dimensional on paper, it is really something much more holistic The training to listen to yourself and to listen to this gut feeling. And we call this method that I developed together with Martin Rauch, ClayStorming, because it's really good in, producing a lot of solutions without constantly judging. at one point, You come into this very meditative atmosphere, when you were a child and you were playing and building something, you're completely in the moment. you forget about time and everything? and then you're very concentrated this is the situation where you're best in designing.

6 47:51

Hi, Anna. Thank you for the, Talk. It was lovely. I'm Nick. a visiting graduate student from art center, college of design in Pasadena. I'm a graduate student in transportation systems design. my question is specifically related to the economics of what you talked about with the textile workers. how much of that did you go into knowing about their work, processes and wanting to help them. Versus learning about their needs. and then similarly, within your design, how much, are you changing your design over time as it's being built? And how much are you working with the people that you're building for in co designing?

2 48:28

So with the Dibtis, with the tailors, for example, it was during a time when I also had a small kid at home and I thought, the ideal version is they take the piece of cloth, they take the design and then, they take the needle and do it at home at the time that feels right for them, where they can integrate the family and everything. So that was the idea. the women I really enjoyed it so much to come together and to talk during the stitching embroidery work. when you live there is that they come together and then on, on the mud road. they come together and do the stitching of the blankets for it traditionally. chat about their lives problems and challenges this is exactly what's happening there. they wanted to come together. This is something that I misunderstood. I thought it's most family friendly when they have it completely decentralized without even a factory building. now, it was clear that we need a building for them and they're also extremely proud to say, I'm going to work. And it even happens, some of the mothers are breastfeeding that the men are bringing, the fathers are bringing the baby for breastfeeding. and take them home again. So it's really interesting modern they are and they organize themselves because for us, it's completely okay also to have the kids there, some take the kids with them. some prefer to be on their own, to be able to concentrate on themselves and on the friends circle and so on. And what we saw is that economics is just one part of it. The other part is The sharing of sorrows and joys and to uplift each other. And it's incredible how much they are growing. It's really beautiful to see that. the second question about the process is the co creation. normally when I'm in Germany designing, I have to know everything. Like years ago, I have to hand in the papers and then. It's all about controlling that, that kind of the design is exactly implemented, how it is planned. And it has to be like this, which is for me an awful way to design. I really don't like it at all because I'm trained in the other way because I started building, in a different way in Bangladesh. there is so much more, to be very much aware in the moment to see all the potentials that are there. you're much more like a conductor. this woman has a fantastic skill and this guy has a great, skill too. So you give space to that skills. So it's let them play a solo and let the next one, get the lead. then of course you're the conductor, when it comes to the proportion and to get the main thing together. it's very much Like an orchestra where different people are bringing in their voices their instrument and their skills. Being aware of the moment, be very intuitive and fast in decision making on site And letting go of control and the quest for perfection. That's probably the hardest part.

1 51:11

I have two questions from our online community. the first one is from Kyoma. hi Anna, thank you for your lecture. It is very inspiring. when you are working in a new country or context, how do you go about understanding and reflecting the local culture, In your architectural design.

2 51:30

in Bangladesh, it was seven years before I started building. I was really integrated in the community. I spoke the language, I still speak the language. it felt very much part of it. and that was also the, otherwise it could not have started building and I could never have had the trust of the community you need the trust of the community to start something like this. Now, when I'm working in a new context in Ghana, for example, it takes lots of time to build up the trust. It's not something you cannot rush. it's impossible to rush it. I thought, I can, it's faster and it's going to be more effective. No. It really needs this trust building period. at the same time, it's also the part where you learn. I personally learn most process and it just takes time Still, I think, once you learn the first foreign language, the second one is easier. The third one is easier. You're getting more sensitized, or sensitive throughout the process and the years. it's basically just listening. And at the same time, not just listening outside, towards the outside, but also learn to listen, to understand your own basic human needs, ArcHa human needs, the more you understand. yourself better, the more you also understand, others better, no matter what kind of cultural context they have.

1 52:43

And when it comes to local building typologies and local building cultures?

2 52:47

Yeah, there is just really going around taking notes, doing measurements, taking photographs and soaking up as much information, the local building techniques, everything. but before I'm starting to design, I really go completely blank. And then, the global information kicks in. Sometimes, pictures are coming in that are from a different context, but they can be applied to the local conditions and trigger solutions. for me, the biggest creative source is that I listen to the climate, I listen to the local materials. And try to make the architecture out of that characteristics, those are my parameters and because the climate and materials are everywhere different, that creates an authenticity in the language and the buildings and that for me is not a limitation. The vulnerability is something to embrace.

1 53:35

And here's a final question from our online viewers. very talented student of mine who is also very interested in your topic. She wrote to us, JG, I really admire your work and thank you so much for the wonderful lecture. I was wondering, would it be possible to implement the work that you are doing to a larger scale? And also, what do you think the biggest challenge in that would be?

2 53:58

Oh, the challenge is only in our mind, because large scale is possible. Three billion people are currently still living in earthen architecture, so we're talking about a majority. We just don't have it in the majority of our journals and books and media. there are more people living in earthen houses in bricks and concrete. Most probably. So this is, it's upscaling is no problem, especially because the materials is everywhere available and it is. And a material you can use low tech and high tech. So that makes it applicable, in every context, high tech with low tech. we need to develop more tools. to make it faster, prefabrication like Martin Rauch is doing is one of the methods. he always says, we are in earthen structures. like concrete walls 30 years ago. So there, there is not much budget and not much lobbyism happening and not much money attached to it. So that's why we are behind in the development. But if more and more people. are looking at it, there is still a vast field of possibilities to speeden up the processes and scaling up is definitely possible.

1 55:02

Thank you very much for that. I will leave the final question and perhaps the closing lines to our Dean, Mr. Polyzoides.

3 55:10

Anna, thank you for this magnificent lecture. for the ones of us who admired your work through books, having your voice attached to it. is really magical because you're also not here. there's a kind of other worldly sense about interaction we're having today. I have One final question. in this school, we're very interested in the relationship between, personal individual brilliance and personal prerogatives of designers. and the idea of tradition, which is a set of ideas about form, about material, about construction, about environment that are carried on through a culture over time, particularly after death, after you, me, or everyone else in this room is not around. What we leave behind, as direction for others to follow in one form or another. So I want to ask whether you have seen in your work any evidence that you're leaving behind traces that are followed by others as a method direction I'm asking with ambition, because Sana'a, what would it take for you to be the instigator of a city? because you put yourself to the task by showing the image of Sanaa. what does it take for the brilliance of your work to be translated into a tradition? And will we see it in your lifetime?

2 56:24

It's a good question. I don't want to leave material traces. I want to leave knowledge. That is for me, something that I would like especially, there is a lot of intrinsic, knowledge in the communities where I'm still working, where I'm working and that this knowledge is not lost. And I think, once you love something, once you see the value in something, you find a way to get to it. My work wants to raise the love towards those materials, especially earth, the most humble material. And I want to raise the trust in people that whatever they have is all that they need to create something beautiful. that is very difficult because advertisement is constantly telling us otherwise, that you need to buy something in order to be someone. my main aim is that I'm not leaving any waste behind. I'm totally happy if my buildings are decompostable. I cannot say, what are the needs of the coming generations. I don't want to leave waste because this is what usually is happening. we try to build for eternity. And our buildings stand for 40 years, 50 years, 60, 70, and then they are waste. I think, if buildings are meaningful, they will stay alive, they will be maintained. other than that, I'm happy if they crumble to the ground they come from. But that the know how is passed on so that future generations see the value in the local materials and have the knowledge to build something beautiful out of it. That's my hope

3 57:50

we thank you very much for an inspiring lecture, and we hope to see you around here at some point soon in person. Thank you.