“Becoming-with” ArchitectureRiccardo Scalzo“Weeds” express a different order—one that unsettles us because it questions ourpresumed supremacy; one that dissolves the illusory hierarchy that places humansat the apex; one that invites us into what Donna Haraway calls the game of the cat’scradle: the willingness to stay open to unexpected combinations, knots and kinshipswith the other creatures with whom we share this planet.In their quiet persistence, weeds question the premise of architecture itself. Ifbuilding-architecture seeks permanence, defines boundaries, and follows preciseprograms, weeds are fluid, opportunistic, ungovernable. They remind us that spacenever belongs entirely to those who draw it on paper; it is always shared, claimed,reshaped through different negotiations, times and scales.For this reason, architecture (and, with it, the architect) should learn to welcomechange instead of resisting it. Architecture should allow itself to be inhabited,invaded, weathered, abandoned, cared for, cultivated, forgotten—much like anyother living creature. An architecture that embraces vulnerability doesn’t aim todominate the environments it touches but rather to participate in them. It wouldrecognize itself not as a stable object but as a cohabiting presence: one rhythmamong many, exposed to the same cycles of aging and decay, the samecontingencies and negotiations that shape the rest of the world.
