Vital Architectures: An Animistic Approach to Socio-Ecological Healing

Abstract

The material world is alive and agential. Indigenous ontologies and contemporary more-than-human theories describe the world as a living community or system, comprised of many different connected entities who are kin. This research on animistic architecture highlights the interactivity between human and more-than-human communities and explores how such interactivity can mutually enhance social, cultural, and ecological wellbeing. Modernisation has affected the wellbeing of Indigenous peoples and the ecosystems they relate to. Returning awareness to the symbiotic relationship between human and more-than-human communities is a healing action in itself. Exploring the epistemological works of academics such as Jane Bennett, Arrianne Conty, and Amanda Yates provides this project with context and a basis for further methodological development through physical forms of vital craft. Designing architecture to improve the wellbeing of the more-than-human community we live amongst will in turn improve the health and wellbeing of human communities. Through a holistic health and wellbeing architecture situated in Titirangi, in the heart of the Waitakere ranges, this project aims to explore how architecture can heal both human and more-than-human communities synergistically.