Third ecology

Mohsen Mostafavi's book "Ecological Urbanism" suggests a new way of thinking, dramatic shift from industrial mechanize world to the one that informs more complex systems of human behavior. It evokes ongoing dialogue of Latour's proliferated hybrids between "Human" and "non-human", biology and social sphere as well as bringing back attention to the third ecology  - "eco-mental system". 

                                                        "The challenges of ecological thinking are found principally in the deepest arenas of our imaginative and intellectual life"

Sanford Kwinter

"...the cultural and social dimensions of our environment as rooted in the natural - are poorly theorized and understood, and at any rate insufficiently acknowledged.  Yet they are the key components of our ecology, without which none of the other parts could fit."

Sanford Kwinter, from Notes on the Third Ecology, Ecological Urbanism 

This way of thinking inspires and provokes re-imagination of the architectural discipline that is no longer autonomous, nor connected only with the closest areas; Not a problem-solving, rather problem finding, cultivation of communicative infrastructure enrich the design. For me, polemics about architecture over years of my studies and diverse experience matured into an open-end question of connectivity and system's complexity. The reading of this week brought biology into my attention, the one I was never concerned about. Understanding of the city as the continious discourse with the human body breaking the point of disconnection and isolation. The same way one can think about the idea of the urban-suburban-rural. Developed infrastructure  (roads, telecommunication, GPS, google) connected previously fragmented realities. 

The whole world is urban. A jungle, a desert oasis, a village in the north or resort by the sea... we all live in the same city. Not cities that resemble one another, but the same.

It is in this 'same city' where one finds familiar toothpaste brands and fashion retailers; where one is able to navigate metro systems and find Wifi signals. 

The same city that is pray to the territorial techniques of late-capitalism. The same gentrification steps.

The same city is drawn in GIS, Autocad and seen through the Google Street View.

The same city that you just Instagramed.

A walled city whose last frontier is the stratosphere.

The whole world is one total city

*METASITU