IN-PERSON Manchester Livable Cities

Abstract

Contemporary architecture faces an acute material and ethical crisis. Buildings shape both our surroundings and our well-being, yet current practice often privileges speed, novelty, and cost-efficiency over authenticity, durability, and human health. Time-tested materials once embodied resilience and connection to place, but they are increasingly displaced by synthetic imitations that deteriorate quickly, emit toxins, and degrade indoor air quality. This crisis is most visible in the redevelopment of post-industrial cities across the American Midwest. Beneath the rhetoric of renewal lie systemic flaws rooted in the widespread use of low-cost, chemically unstable materials in affordable housing and publicly funded projects. These materials fail prematurely, endangering residents and trapping vulnerable populations in unhealthy environments. Misallocated public and federal funding perpetuate the problem, rewarding short-term, low-quality construction over durable, humane design. The result is a hollow urbanism, an architecture of disposability disguised as progress. Theoretical frameworks by Mostafavi and Leatherbarrow, Brand, and Koolhaas illuminate this condition. In On Weathering, Mostafavi and Leatherbarrow reclaim aging as authenticity; Brand’s How Buildings Learn interprets adaptation as architectural intelligence; and Koolhaas’s Junkspace exposes the emptiness of image-driven development. Together, these critiques call for renewed material ethics in both practice and education. This paper advocates for a shift linking design, health, and longevity. Through authentic materials and accountable construction, architecture can once again serve as an instrument of care, creating buildings that learn, adapt, and endure.