At a time when public spaces are being redefined and universities are transforming from mere educational institutions into politicized spaces of collective agency, the ongoing student resistance that began on March 19 has underscored the spatial dimension of political struggle and solidarity. In this context, space emerges not only as a physical environment but as a medium for collective expression and social transformation.
This exhibition that has been held by Aura & Salt, is included in the selection not only because of its thematic resonance with today’s student movements, but also due to its emphasis on collective production and critical engagement. It foregrounds the voice of students and young designers, asserting architectural imagination as a form of political agency. Here, hope is not treated as an abstract sentiment, but as the inevitable outcome of thinking and producing together.
The exhibition also offers a compelling response to this political and ecological moment. Through projects that explore themes such as environmental degradation, spatial injustice, memory, and resistance, the exhibition invites a critical rethinking of architecture—not as a passive witness to crisis, but as a tool for navigating and confronting it.
Situated between romanticism and nihilism, and not content with mere critique, ‘As the world burns’, the studio aimed to sincerely and collectively rediscover how they entangle with the world, build in the world. One way they sought to make, was by being “not in an unknown world” but rather by bearing witness to the “worlds we do know,” endeavoring to reclaim “architecture” within our planet’s boundaries, enchanting it through practice and making.
The studio engaged with imagining practices that could generate alternatives to an architecture of domination. By disrupting comfortable stabilities and conventional procedures—and turning the design of living spaces into a practice of care and repair, they “got their hands dirty,” as Hélène Frichot’s “dirty theory”** proposes.
It is apparent that ‘As the world burns’, hopes to create constructive discord for all who inhabit this world.
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