Deep Adaptation - The Spatial Dimension

The future, which we thought we had maybe another decade to prepare for, is now suddenly here. In all likelihood, we can expect further crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic or of similar severity, especially in the context of climate change. They will render the 21st century radically different from the 20th: conventions, techniques, and social practices we are familiar with will disappear. Our responsibilities and roles as architects and urban planners will also change fundamentally in this process. We will work in increasingly volatile and vulnerable contexts and constellations. Until now, many actors in politics, but also in academia and research, have played down or denied the vulnerability of our urban structures to the risks that are the direct effects of our current way of life. In the search for alternative and, in a sense, more realistic perspectives, Jem Bendell’s concept of “Deep Adaptation”, which has been widely and controversially discussed since its first publication in 2018, calls for a shift: he urges us to prepare for the collapse of certain systems that currently govern our lives – and to see this as an opportunity for positive change. This change and the resulting challenges we are facing are primarily not technological, but above all social, economic, and organisational in nature. Moreover, they are highly interdependent and all-encompassing; they require systemic change, profound transformations, and adaptations of action. It is therefore not a question of developing technical solutions in isolation, but rather of fundamentally rethinking the way we live, operate, work, travel, and interact. This issue of SPOOL seeks to explore the spatial dimension of the Deep Adaptation concept and how it can be put to use in the spatial disciplines such as urban planning, landscape planning, urban design, and architecture

It’s too late for pessimism: How the Deep Adaptation Agenda is relevant for teaching in the spatial disciplines

The crises we face today call for a careful assessment of our collective and individual understandings and responses. The past decades have shown us that acknowledgement of the emergencies alone is not sufficient to address the problems, especially within the complex context and conditions of the built environment. In the face of ‘inevitable’ change, and of current and future challenges, this urges us to direct a critical glance towards how we understand and frame the problems as spatial practitioners, how we position ourselves towards them, and how our ethical and professional responsibilities and agencies must change. As an open question and a long-term endeavour, this echoes within the context of academia. However, a central position has yet to emerge. In this article, we give an account of our experiences by taking a closer look at the approaches, formats, and method we have employed at the Professorship of Urban Design at TU Munich and elaborate on how these concerns can be embedded in the content, systems, and structures of teaching, and how the Deep Adaptation Agenda plays a facilitating role in this ongoing attempt