"Rethinking Material Resources alongside Human Resourcefulness"

Our built environment is the physical stage on which all human stories are lived out. This physical stage is the historical and ongoing manifestation of human imagination operating within real (or, imaginary!) constraints. Anupama Kundoo advances the idea that architectural imagination must transcend design and enter the realms of materials science and economics where some of the bigger questions reside. She will discuss the thrust of her inquiries which have been to find practical ways to fulfill the universal human aspiration for refuge, purpose, and social engagement through extensive material research and experimentation. She will discuss 'Human Time as a Resource' in the quest for new materiality and critically examine the way the time value of money has nudged us towards code-based design and the industrialized production of building components and, sometimes, even entire buildings themselves. She will discuss materiality and consumption of finite natural resources alongside their impact on human wellbeing and human resourcefulness.

Anupama Kundoo

Anupama Kundoo graduated from the University of Mumbai in 1989 and received her PhD from Technische Universität Berlin in 2008. Her research-oriented practice, started in 1990 in Auroville, has generated people-centric architecture based on spatial and material research for low environmental impact while being socioeconomically beneficial. Her body of works was recently exhibited as a solo show, Taking Time, at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark. She has taught Architecture and Urban Management at various international universities including Yale and Columbia, strengthening her expertise in rapid urbanization and climate change-related development issues. She is currently Professor at Technische Universität Berlin, Germany and the Norman Foster Visiting Professor of Architecture at Yale University. She received the RIBA Charles Jencks Award for her contribution to architectural theory, the 2021 Auguste Perret Prize for architectural technology, the 2021 Building Sense Now Global Award of the German Sustainable Building Council DGNB, and the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture under UNESCO patronage in 2022. Her studios are based in Berlin, Germany, and Pondicherry, India. Kundoo’s rigorous research and experimentation in new materiality for architecture is the result of questioning basic assumptions and construction habits that humanity has adopted during the long process of industrialization. Rather than focussing on shortage, she sought abundance through investing in human resources and human resourcefulness, such as ingenuity, time, skills, care and sense of community.