This text results from the dialogue established between two research projects within the field of Production Studies. One, a doctoral study, investigates the relationship between society and nature, highlighting contradictions within the concept of sustainability in architectural production. The other is part of ongoing postdoctoral research at the Institute of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of São Paulo (IAU-USP) and focuses on material culture, specifically studying aluminium production. Both studies explore their themes through the works of Sérgio Ferro, following the methodological approach of the project ‘Translating Ferro/Transforming Knowledge in Architecture, Project, and Labor’ (TF/TK).Bringing these two research projects together enables an illustration, from different perspectives, of how the capitalist model of value extraction operates behind architectural production, functioning as a kind of ‘illusion game’.

In the context of escalating global environmental pressures and ecological breakdown, current trajectories of material resource use in the construction sector are overwhelming the regenerative capacity of the biosphere, causing severe repercussions to the interdependencies of humans and ecosystems across different scales. Research into bio-based building materials such as hemp, straw, stone, and earth has received widespread attention as a holistic tool for envisioning human development on a stable and resilient planet. However, the supply of these materials at scale remains dependent upon the continuation (and expansion, in some cases) of an economic and political model that is based on large-scale extraction and dependent upon an infinite resource pool. We argue that materials are not fixed commodities but are continuous with the landscapes they come from: co-constituted by people's livelihoods, land ownership and cultivation models, and more-than-human inhabitants, so they should not be separated from these entangled relations. This research critically examines what the shift to a bio-based construction material palette means for current material-ecological systems, and what new natures are born from these interspecies sociomaterial relations. Focusing on bats (a high mobility, keystone species in the UK) to re-evaluate how the production and use of bio-based materials is an interspecies endeavour, here we map out the systemic cracks in land use, ecology, and conservation planning created by capitalist structures. We found that the excluded relations fall under three typologies: value, temporality, and knowledge. Our research also revealed how systems of material production can create spaces for alternative forms of cohabitation and non-extractive production, or interspecies repair. This critical study makes a case for a broader discussion of interspecies spatial-ecologies born out of new bio-based architectures.

Language skills could provide valuable professional and social opportunities for early modern migrants, but little is known of the actual linguistic strategies they employed. This article analyzes how sixteenth-century migrants from the southern Low Countries acted as linguistic brokers, leveraging their knowledge of French language and literature in their German host societies. Even though French was not their native language, members of the Netherlandish migrant community were responsible for the first French-German grammars and dictionaries, and played a pivotal role in introducing French Renaissance poetry to Germany.

This paper explores activist organisations in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industries that advocate for climate justice in the name of Just Transition. Just Transition, a segment of the climate justice movement, emphasises the need for those workers who will be most affected by a transition to a green economy - construction workers - to participate in the formation of the policies that will affect them. The paper makes the point that architects must recognise their role in the construction industry and hence participate in Just Transition advocacy. It explores the different organisations, in both the construction and architecture industries, that promote a Just Transition, examining the varied methods, targets, and scales of advocacy. It points out distinctions in these groups according to how far the group goes in linking Just Transition advocacy to a critique of capitalism’s call for continued growth and development. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of targeting local policymakers versus more global and systemic power brokers as well as the varied effectiveness of groups that identify as agitators, non-profit organisers, or NGOs. At the end, the author reconsiders some of the assumptions that were used in creating the ‘effectiveness’ hierarchy imposed on the listing of organisations that the paper describes and speculates on the various ways a person can be called to action in the name of Just Transition.

Through a discussion of a place awaiting development this article asks: what is ecologically and culturally at stake in the production of large-scale, suburban housing? Examining a case study of a proposed 2,700-unit development in North Tyneside, UK, the article offers a multi-narrative account of the various political-economic, ecological, and cultural landscape factors at risk in these processes of building. The paper develops an approach which links a political-economy perspective - through a focus on the political and economic drivers and processes of housing development - to a micro-focus on affect and place attachment. Drawing on diary entries, ecological surveys, policy analysis, creative responses, interviews, and prose, the article highlights the cultural meaning the proposed development site holds for local people, and the importance of well-maintained arable environments for protecting biodiversity. The paper urges the need to rethink value and care in the production of housing, to get a better deal for both human and more-than-human nature.