Handmade Architecture As A Catalyst For Development

In this lecture, Anna Heringer presents a series of projects where the choice of building materials and techniques has had a major influence on distribution of resources, participation and equality. Emphasizing that ‘we cannot build houses of only steel and concrete for seven billion people’ she proposes a strategy of bringing global creativity to the local materials, local skills and local potentials.Anna Heringer is an architect and Hon.Prof. of the UNESCO Chair for Earthen Architecture, Constructive Cultures and Sustainable Development in Germany. She established her international reputation in sustainable architecture with the METI School in Bangladesh, that she designed for her graduation thesis and realized in 2006 together with Eike Roswag. Since then, Heringer has further developed her award-winning approach based on the use of local materials and labor in several projects and workshops in Asia, Africa, Europe and the US, as well as in her teaching as visiting professor at Linz, Stuttgart and Vienna. She has recieved a number of awards, including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture.