A Manifesto for
The Carrier Bag Theory
of Architecture

Story

Building as a container, as a carrier bag, as a pool that holds the life story of transformations, unpredictability and messiness. If we define the building as a container, then the building becomes the site itself and architecture no longer needs empty plots to flourish, but existing structures to begin the transformation.

Theory

The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin questions the stories and heroes we have been told and the images we have inherited. Can we change our ossified perceptions of beauty and functionality? The answer is yes, when we define the architecture with stories rather than objects. 

Addiction

Construction becomes an addiction when triggered by economic reasons rather than spatial needs.

Ghosts

The Carrier Bag Theory of Architecture begins with revealing the story of the neglected. Though their absence is unnoticed, they change the whole scenography once they are uncovered and pulled on stage. What if we listen to and understand the stories of abandoned buildings, rather than focusing on more heroic, successful examples?

Entropy

Abandoned buildings are entropic. They are the extensions of a rearranged landscape with their chaotic structures open to possibilities. They are the abundant resource of materials and memory that could restrain humans from constantly reshaping earth.

Expiry Date

Heroes have expiry dates, buildings don’t. Making a building is the result of a compromise and when the compromise is no longer available, buildings expire.

Why Demolish?

We demolish because we cannot tolerate the ugly, the old, the outdated and the unused. As resources diminish, we can no longer afford this highly choreographed performance that hurts the Earth. It has become necessary to listen to and work with buildings’ stories rather than placing them on pedestals or discarding and erasing them completely.

CSI

In a time when a whole building can be scanned, even by a smartphone, can we use technology to investigate and diagnose existing buildings more efficiently? Can technology save buildings from being fragile heroes?

Concrescere*

The original recipe of concrete was specifically developed by the Romans to “grow together” rather than to expire with time as in the case of the contemporary formula of concrete. We need to reconsider our relationship with concrete which constitutes the majority of existing buildings. 

Repair Shop

Machines are repaired to be stronger and more sound. Buildings too, regularly need to be repaired, not with a superficial make-over, but with in-depth care, carried out collaboratively through engineering, craft and design.

Venice Charter – Revisited

The opposite transformation is preservation. Preservation desires to take the Hero back to his glory days, whereas transformation does not need a Hero, it just needs a story to cultivate.  

Learning from

Existing structures are relational, and relations make architecture messier, more chaotic, yet stronger. Instead of ignoring these relations, we need to develop methods to learn from them. 
Can transforming existing structures be at the centre of the construction industry as well as architectural education and practice?

Test Drive

It is the people who keep buildings alive, and it is the buildings that keep people together. Architecture generates this symbiotic relationship. Is it possible to test with machine learning, algorithms and AI models, to break free from stereotypical perceptions of “ugly” and “beautiful” in order to bring the expansive stock of abandoned buildings to life again?

Transformers

Erecting or demolishing a building is in the Hero’s tale. Transforming them, is not. The Earth can no longer tolerate heroic tales, but it does need inclusive and hopeful stories of transformation. 

The Pool

Before the building that represents power, there was the building that includes people. The Carrier Bag Theory of Architecture was derived from the transformation of an abandoned swimming pool into a public pool of listening and sharing.

* The root of the word concrete in Latin, concrescere, means growing together.