On Architecture and the Greenfield: The Political Economy of Space Vol. 02 maps the collision between two urgent imperatives — the right to housing and the finite stock of agricultural land being consumed by urban expansion worldwide.
About This Book
As cities grow outward, they devour the farmland that sustains them — a contradiction at the heart of contemporary urbanisation. This second volume in Hatje Cantz's The Political Economy of Space series takes that contradiction seriously, assembling a cross-section of positions from architects, theorists, and spatial thinkers who refuse easy resolution. The greenfield — land on the urban periphery, often agricultural — becomes a lens through which questions of land use, housing rights, and climate responsibility are examined with unusual directness. Following the series' first volume on greenwashing, this instalment sharpens its focus on the political and economic forces that determine where, and at what cost, we build.
Key Features
- 120 pages of multi-perspective critical essays on architecture, land use, and political economy
- Edited by Charlotte Malterre-Barthes
- Second volume in The Political Economy of Space series, following On Architecture and Greenwashing (2024)
- Published by Hatje Cantz, 2024
What You'll Discover
- How peripheral farmland is being absorbed by housing estates globally, and the scale of hectares lost to urban sprawl
- The ethical and political tension between housing as a human right and the ecological limits of greenfield development
- A range of disciplinary perspectives on how architecture participates in — and might respond to — the political economy of land
- How this volume positions itself within a broader critical series interrogating architecture's complicity in climate and social crises
About the Author
Charlotte Malterre-Barthes is the editor of this volume and the series editor of The Political Economy of Space. [Details available upon request]
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 120
- Dimensions: 18 × 10.5 × 0.5 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783775758208
- Publisher: Hatje Cantz
- Publication Date: 2024
Perfect For: Architects, urban planners, and spatial theorists engaging with land use ethics, housing policy, and the political dimensions of urbanisation and climate response.