Reconceptualising sustainability practice research in architecture: radical ways of seeing and imagining

In this introductory essay, which also frames the other contributions to this AJAR Special Collection that were selected from the papers given at the Radical Architecture Practice for Sustainability (RAPS) conference in 2021, we will – in our role as guest editors – explain our thinking behind that event.

What we suggest here are new conceptual approaches to expand the study of sustainability within the architectural domain. Research into transformational architectural practices suited to a climate-changed future has already accelerated rapidly in Britain and elsewhere, and yet the proliferation of new targets, frameworks and policies is typically dominated by an empirical focus rather than by theoretical advances. Therefore, this essay elaborates upon Assemblage Theory and scientific studies of human imagination in order to expand the modes of research into architectural sustainability. By doing so, we are bringing an expanded conceptual understanding to the topic of sustainability in calling for new ‘ways of seeing’ and for new 'ways of imagining' architecture.