Refusal

Abstract

In the last two years alone, we have seen headlines calling architects to reject ‘fast architecture’ (Prince- Parrott, 2021), join climate strikes (Hopkirk, 2019), refuse current working conditions (Daley, 2022), and end racial discrimination (Maafi, 2021). While architecture is certainly a significant contributor to the creation of built environments that produce and reproduce the myriad of contemporary injustices, this issue of Materia Arquitectura asks whether architecture —as an object and as a discipline— can take an oppositional stance. Rather reverting to Adolfo Natalini’s 1971 call to live without architecture as a means to catalyze the process of creating safe, healthful, and equitable spaces,1 the series of articles that follow explores ways in which architecture has historically used —and in the present uses— a strategy of countering to achieve often unexpected results that go beyond conventions.