'Designer s engaging
with the idea of
degrowth '~ill also have
t o gr apple with how
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3t o prioritise use value
over exchange value'
eruptions of new forms of human and non-human activity through less
human intervention.
An even more fundamental opportunity for current design practice
can be found in the degrowth movement. Starting through social
activism, and situated in a much longer lineage t hat critiques the
gTowth imperative, t he concept of degrowth is at its core critical
of the basic structures and functions of the capitalist economy.
Rather than the ongoing dialectic of devalorisation and revalorisation
as a circuit 'Within capitalism, the vision of degrowth offers something
of an off-ramp that can disrupt the mechanism of the perpetual growth
machine. ~Thile not revaluing idleness in the context of capitalist
urbanisation per se, a move away from the competitive pressures
engendered by endless cycles of production and consumption,
degrowth can promote an experimental, variegated, inclusive and
lively urban fabric.
If the logic of capital is the search for, and production of, a 'rational'
landscape, degrowth might look to exploit the irrational or strive
for heterogeneity. We may, for example, want to broaden what
we understand to be proper species composition in urban settings
by for egrounding non-human animals in our theoretical and conceptual
apparat us. We may also want to practise 'letting go' in spaces no longer
valu ed by capital. In this case, Gilles Clement's 'Third Landscape'
provides arresting examples of humans ceding control of aesthetic
production of the landscape to nature, while promoting rich
biodiversity in the process. Designer s engaging with the idea of
degrowth will also have to grapple with how to prioritise use value
over exchange value. Rethinking socio-spatial relations outside
the capitalist valorisation devalorisation circuit, Torre de D avid
in Caracas, Ven ezuela, offers one high-profile example of how a vibrant
community can flourish in the waste of financial speculation.
H owever, as David Harvey argues, planners put out fires emerging
from the chronic instability of the urban fabric produced under
capitalist urbanisation, without concern and/or capacity to engage
with the underlying conditions that produce the fires. While we view
Harvey's critique sympathetically - he does, in our estimation, a good
job articulating the political-economy context in which planning and
design is embedded - we nevertheless view his analysis of the capacity
of design and planning to be somewhat narrow. A primary challenge
for designers t hen ¥.rill be how to mobilise a collective vision for the
agency of design that is democratic and participatory and can counter
the hegemony of growth without ultimately b eing eo-opted by capital
as just another accumulation strategy that maintains class and power
relations. For that, much work is required to build a broad coalition of
stakeholders that can organise to resist the restless energies of capital.
:Moments of pause - of idleness - which were once valued, have
been replaced by a paradigm of perpetual activity, but there is
a theoret ical and practical potential for dormancy in a world always
in motion. Fall owing could offer a moment of transition out of the
circuit of capitalist value creation and destruction. As we begin
to recognise the maoO'Jlitude of the impact that an ideology of progress
has had on the urban fabric, social organisation, ecological processes
and the climate more broadly, our call in t his essay is for the allied
design disciplines - urban planning, architecture and landscape
architecture, in particular - to take seriously the idea of fallow
by pursuing solutions that lie beyond the capitalist logic of perpetual
building and unbuilding.The Torre de David in
Caracas fell victim to the
1994 economic crisis in
Venezuela.lt now houses
300 low-income families
despite its incomplete state,
and the fact that at 26 floors
high it still has no lift