Thinking Architecture with an Indian Ocean Aquapelago. Issue 2 (2nd July 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bremner, Lindsay
• Is Part Of: GeoHumanities. Volume 2:Issue 2(2016)
• Page Start: 284
• Page End: 310
• Publication Date: 2016-07-02
• Subjects: aquapelago -- archipelago -- architecture -- island, Maldives; 水群岛 -- 建筑 -- 岛屿 -- 马尔代夫; acuapelago -- archipiélago -- arquitectura -- isla -- maldivas; Arts and geography -- Periodicals; Human geography -- Periodicals; 304.2
• DOI: 10.1080/2373566X.2016.1234353
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2373-566X

Abstract

Abstract : This article takes up the charge of thinking architecture with one of the Indian Ocean's central coral atoll formations, the Maldives archipelago. It is undertaken as a critique of the concept of the archipelago as deployed in architecture since the 1970s. Architects have used the archipelago as a metaphoric metageographical concept based on a land–sea binary, to conceive of architecture as autonomous from its environments. This permits the discipline exemption from its contexts and frames its engagement with the diverse mobilities of contemporary globalization. To counter this, the article draws from a broad body of literature familiar to readers of GeoHumanities, namely island studies, urban island studies, political ecology, and thinking with water, to undertake a reading of the Maldives as an oceanic aquapelago, as an alternative metageographical concept for architecture in today's globalized world.