Indy Johar thinks we need a “boring revolution.” As director of 00 and Dark Matter Labs, the London-based architect-by-training is seeking to spark social change, building the blueprint for a more democratic and sustainable future in the cracks of today’s outdated institutions. But while the revolution he seeks is “boring” – less Robespierre, more regulatory renovation – the architect and his ideas are far from it.

As one of the keynote speakers at the 2022 Living Cities Forum, a forum about crisis, change and opportunity, Johar made a real impression, presenting hard facts and statistics that served as a stark reminder of our reality right now. Architecture Media editorial director Katelin Butler spoke to Johar about the challenges facing architecture and society, and the scale of transformation required.

Katelin Butler: I am interested in the way you spoke about crisis – in all shapes and forms – being the new norm, and that imagining we’ll return to some sense of stability is an illusion. You suggested that society needs to embrace what you call “entanglement,” so that we can deal with this uncertainty and take all the inevitable shocks along the way. So, my first question is to ask how you think we, as architects, might start doing this? It’s a big question!

Indy Johar: It is a big question. I think the first step is just recognizing the scale of what’s going on. I think my big worry is that we talk about scale in some ways, but then don’t manifest that scale in understanding what that means for us and the work that we do.

And recognizing that scale means recognizing how broad that shift is going to be, in terms of the energy balance shift of our societies, the material shift of our societies, how we live, how we work. All these things are going to be transformed – our food systems – and that will change so much of our physical geography, of our place and how we live and work together. So, I think firstly it’s just about recognizing that scale.

Then I think the really interesting question for us is how do we operate at that scale? Because operating at that scale is not going to be, you know – knocking down cities and replacing them because we don’t have the power, the materials or the legitimacy to do that.

So, we need a different way of operating at scale, which I think is about embracing civic-ness and civic citizenship and transformation in different ways. So, how we create a new theory of operating at scale at design level – I think is going to be really critical and it is going to have to involve citizenship in a really different way.

KB: Yes, the scale of the transformation required is quite overwhelming. So, with this in mind, how do smaller acts play into the bigger picture? Do they make any difference in the scheme of things? Do these big-picture strategies require myriad small acts to make change? Do you think that that’s true?

IJ: That’s exactly true. It requires thousands and thousands of small acts. Now, I think the question is, how do you do thousands of small acts? It’s the micro-massive – you need massive amounts of micro actions to be able to do this. But we need to do it in a different way because we can’t wait – if you were to replace all the housing stock in the UK, it would take 1,400 years at the current replacement rate.

So yes, we have to do it micro-massive ways. And I think that’s the design challenge. How do you encourage a street to transform all of its lawns? How do you encourage a street to extend green space by 300 millimetres of civic gardening? How do you encourage the street to build the microgrid? How do you encourage the street to build a flood-management system, which means that they’re not paving over their front gardens? It’s these small acts – and these acts are significant.

To use London as an example, just because I have the data, if you look at the number of front gardens that were covered over because people wanted to park their cars at the front door … it’s massive! We’ve lost a huge amount of space across the whole city in the space of 10 years.

So, it’s a combination of these micro and the massive at the same time.

Next State (DAFZA), a 21st century free zone in an age of technological revolution and climate breakdown, Dark Matter Labs.

KB: So, there’s an immense amount of retrofitting required across our cities. Do you think that we shouldn’t be building new at all and only retrofitting what already exists?

IJ: I think we will end up continuing to build new, and that’s fine. I also think we need to retrofit. I think it’s an “and” problem not an “or” problem – certainly for many cities. The question is, what materials are we using for the new build? How can we use the new build to drive a different type of material economy that’s not based on high hydrocarbon density mining?

I think that’s what we should be asking – how do we preserve the soil with the new build? And remember a new build is so small, relative to our old stock – it’s really a pathway to show what’s possible and create new frameworks of demand of what’s possible around that size.

But we have to start thinking about this at the whole housing stock level. All of our knowledge and all of our expectations are really focused on new builds because of the market. But, when you look at it through another lens, I think you start to realize some of the deep transitions required.

KB: Architects obviously can’t save the world on their own – what role do you think collaboration plays in all of this? And do you think architects should further embrace working with other industries?

IJ: Totally. This is about public policy. This is about all sorts of other disciplines in terms of how do we finance the stuff, new materials science etc. So, yes, we’re going to need to collaborate. But I do think architects do play a role in relation to synthesis – and being able to synthesize these agents.

And increasingly, if you look at community architects and community urbanists, they do play a very important role in convening communities in being able to actually design their neighbourhoods in different formats. I think increasingly there is a critical role [for architects] because this is not just a problem of what do we do, it’s a problem of how we do it, and we have to do it with communities in really radical, different ways.

KB: This comment reminds me that you talked a lot in your Living Cities presentation about shifting the conversation to be about “we” rather than “I.”

IJ: Yeah, absolutely. And the reason why that’s important is that in democracies, we’re not going to tell people what to do with their homes – that’s never going to work. So we have to create a shared comprehension of the problem. And this means consulting with people. And then a journey to do this together with citizens, and with state. And I think that’s a type of different behaviour.

KB: As an architect, where do you begin with this kind of process? Do you have any advice?

IJ: I think you can start even at the street level. And I do say the street level rather than the house level. I think the problem domain exists beyond the individual unit – and we’re too often focused on the individual unit. And that’s largely because you have to be able to orchestrate social value in this transition as well. The street is a very powerful place to start.

KB: In your presentation, you talked about the role of community mental health in this transformation. What would you say about that?

IJ: I think fundamentally we know that the transformation of the street is not about the transformation of it in energy terms. Yes, we have an energy issue and yes, there is the biodiversity issue. And yes, we have to deal with indoor air quality. So how do we use this moment to take an integral transformation of how we live in order to be able to unlock what is a really key part of the story – the invisible slums of the past. Because air pollution, sound pollution, noise pollution, heat, flood gates, biodiversity – all these things are coming together.

This is a deep transformation that has to be done. And it’s only integrally that we will be able to not only create the environments of the future, but deal with the societal inequalities that we currently face in that framework. So that’s why I think this is an integral problem and we need to look at it as multidimensionally as possible, but also build it in this way from the streets up.

KB: Finally, in your talk you mentioned that we have a thousand days left to make change…

IJ: Yes, if we’re going to avert this process, we have to make significant change between now and the end of 2030. And by “significant” – I don’t think we quite understand what that means. We have to pivot most of our policies and practices in terms of heading towards net zero at a very rapid rate. Now, in the next three years, every year, every moment that we don’t do this, we carry burden for the last years. And the burden accelerates because currently we’re literally ignoring all this.

We have to turn this almost vertically and the closer we get to 2030, we have to almost do a vertical pivot down, which is never going to happen. So this is why the next thousand days is really important.

KB: Well, that’s not really a very uplifting point to end on – but it’s a good call to action.

IJ: I think the street is the point of intervention, right? This is the story for me. This is going to be a transformation street by street across Australia. And that requires a new method and new capabilities. This has to be built through citizen sense-making, and citizens understanding this – it’s not about imposing, it’s about building shared comprehensions. And I think this will transform everything – but that’s also a point of value. Australia is food sufficient, if it did think about it. It is able to build a timber industry. But that’s going to take 25 years. So we are going to have to build these transitions and this is going to be a kind of postwar rebuilding – at that scale. And I think we just have to embrace that this won’t be about incrementalism – it will be about the everyday, but it is about the grand transitions that are necessary.

Fundamentally, this is about a new relationship with things and a new relationship with the world around us. I think Glenn Murcutt used to talk about touching the earth lightly and I think this is about a mass retouching of the earth lightly, and it’s about a new relationship with the earth and life in a more fundamental way, if we’re going to make this transition.

Indy Johar spoke at the 2022 Living Cities Forum held in Melbourne on 21 July. His and other speakers’ presentations are available to watch on demand via the Living Cities Forum website.

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