By George Brugmans 

This book about designing in times of climate crisis — the endgame is a given, we are smack dab in the middle of it — is the concluding project of Down to Earth, the antitypical 9th edition of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) in 2021. 

While the world was in lockdown, chief curator George Brugmans turned the traditional biennale model inside out and focused on completely unfolding the IABR–Ateliers’ research on how to use energy transition and water management as leverage to find real world solutions to help realize the world community’s sustainable development goals..

In the first section of this visually rich book, "How can we land?," Brugmans reports on this research, anchoring it in the history of the IABR as a cultural research institute aimed at real change. The book documents a series of seven smaller exhibitions that were organized across a year and in different locations from September 2020, as the pandemic permitted, highlighting the IABR's commitment as a cultural institution to eco-conscious design. 

The second section, "Where Can We Land?," includes an essay by landscape architect Dirk Sijmons and an account of a conversation between teachers and students at the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture and Urban Design. Brugmans reflects on the complex presence of humans in the Anthropocene, argues for a new art policy as a condition for a truly free creative space, and makes suggestions to designers and imaginers on how to take a stand now that the endgame is the human condition.

Now that the world is heading for more than two degrees of global warming, Down to Earth is a call to designers: get your act together!

Designed by ARK: Loes Claessens, Roosje Klap

Published by NAI010 Publishers, 2024

Softcover, 440 pages, 150 color images, 6.75 × 9.5 inches

ISBN: 978-9-46-208802-3