Life on our warming planet is demanding new things of architecture and architects. It requires, first and foremost, that we radically reduce the carbon pollution generated by the building industry[1]. At the same time, it also insists we accommodate a human population of eight billion and counting, most of them in urban areas, along with a range of other issues: decreasing biodiversity, evolving industries, shifting political and social dynamics, and new modes of living. The situation poses a paradoxical challenge: the urgent need to do much more while using less. When you need to build, what should be done when the best thing might be not to build at all? Architects can no longer avoid this contradiction through self- deception. For a time, we told ourselves that we could solve architecture’s carbon problem if we just made buildings that performed better and used less energy. An entire industry embraced this approach, leading to the proliferation of performance rating systems, and it was successful—to a degree—in reducing emissions. But the widespread adoption of this approach and its partial success caused designers to believe that the crucial work of carbon mitigation belonged solely to the technical side of architecture. Intellectual and creative design discourse were able to avoid the issue, and the denial continues. We continue to waste our built environment, tearing down existing buildings and dumping their materials into polluting landfills under the guise of obsolescence—a process that embodies the “creative destruction” required by capitalism to make way for new innovations.[2] Waste, in other words, is integral to systems of capital. Despite all the evidence of capitalism’s failings and harm, the modern vision of progress that drives it remains very powerful. It is so powerful that some architects are now choosing to follow it into outer Space. They are ready to abandon Earth entirely, leaving it behind as a planetary wasteland and designing for the colonization of Mars.[3] We may not be able to bring everyone back down to Earth, but it is not too late for our terrestrial home. In fact, we are exactly on time to bring a new system into being: one that, following Latour, recognizes all living beings as free and encourages them to come together as free agents to create new societies[4]. We need a new credo to guide our actions going forward. For too long, we have dismissed the care and reuse of what exists as backward, traditional, and anti-modern. Yet it actually requires us to practice in a more radical way. Grafting is part of this new way of thinking. By shifting our focus toward discovering the value in what remains and envisioning its reinvention, what will arise is a new environmental architecture that transforms waste into gold—finding climate balance while producing something original and compelling, even joyful, for our time.
Grafting / græft/ıŋ/ is a design philosophy aimed at upcycling existing building stock by attaching new additions (scions) to old structures (rootstock) in a way that is advantageous to both. The practice of architectural grafting connects the two to create an expanded, flourishing, and distinctive work of architecture.
Architect-grafter’s credo: ten points
1 ENVIRONMENT
Just as living plant grafts are subject to their environments, architectural grafts must also weather their surrounding conditions. Climate-appropriate grafts have a better chance of surviving and thriving.
2 COMPATIBILITY
From horticultural and natural grafting, we learn that for two plants to successfully fuse, they must be compatible. It follows that to develop a successful architectural graft, architects must deeply consider how additions will find commonality with the original. Identifying and expanding on commonalities will make the final project flourish.
3 REDUNDANCY
When the roots of plants graft in the wild, they reinforce the larger connective system that enables them to share resources as a community. The multitude of connections formed, with their density of contact points, provides a larger surface area for the ex- change of molecules. This redundancy of connections promotes growth and development in plants, and the same principle applies to architecture. A high density of connections between the old and the new is advantageous on programmatic, structural, and aesthetic levels. In architectural grafting, the goal is to establish networks of connections in various ways, allowing different buildings or parts of a city to function as a unified whole.
4 PRECISION
Horticultural grafting performed above ground, in contrast to the spontaneous natural grafting of roots, demands a high degree of geometric precision. A sloppily executed graft will fail. Likewise, in architecture, successful grafting relies on a precise fit between the different parts. To create an elegant connection, each centimeter must be carefully analyzed and matched with exactitude.
5 CAPACITY
In horticultural grafting, the existing rootstock serves as the foundation, while the scion’s role is to expand and augment its capacity. Without the rootstock, the scion will not survive. Similarly, in grafted architecture, the original building cannot be removed entirely. It can, however, be pruned, just like the future addition or combined building, to promote growth, extend capabilities, and improve overall capacity. The architectural scion must always deliver new benefits to the original.
6 RECIPROCITY
Once grafted, the scion and rootstock plants remain genetically distinct, yet they develop the ability to influence each other physio- logically. The two parts of a properly grafted building or city will also share a mutual influence. We can identify the reciprocal qualities of successfully grafted architecture, such as materiality, proportionality, or programmatic transformation. Reciprocity implies that the old imparts its time-tested qualities to the new, while the new, in turn, offers something novel back. Grafting signifies that the old, whether a building or a city, does not remain untouched.
7 FLEXIBILITY
The rootstock of a fruit tree can accommodate multiple new scions that bear different varieties of fruit. It is even possible to graft scions onto scions. Similarly, the grafted architectural object or city is flexible enough to accommodate future options, just like the various ways in which rootstock and scion can accept grafts. The process of grafting in architecture always preserves opportunities for future changes to unfold.
8 JOINING
When plants are grafted, their joint serves as a visual indicator between the old and the new. It becomes a site of healing that often forms a thickened scar or callus. In architectural grafting, the joint should also provide insight into the project’s history. The conventional practice of placing the joint, a significant tectonic moment, recessed in shadow might offer a visually clean appearance, but it misses the opportunity to tell the story of the fusion between distinct parts.
9 CARE
Developing a comprehensive understanding of the rootstock is essential for a successful horticultural graft. It is crucial to know about the original plant, appreciate its particular qualities, and care about its well-being and longevity. A successful architectural urban graft also involves taking careful stock of the existing structure or urban fabric and caring about its continuation. This process is deeply satisfying for the architect- grafter, as it involves attentive research and the joy of discovery.
10 PLEASURE
A properly grafted building or city will offer users visual and experiential delight. There is inherent beauty in witnessing the trans- formation of something that has been re- paired and continues to be useful, growing and evolving over time, weaving its own narrative. Like encountering a grafted apple tree, this pleasure stems not from nostalgia but from observing a living thing thrive and enjoying its tasty fruit.
Museum of fine arts, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA.
This museum addition project reorganized the original campus’s haphazard growth into a harmonious and dynamic new center for the arts. Over its nearly 100-year existence, the beloved public institution had become a dense mass of inward-facing structures, closed off from the surrounding park site. With art galleries, an art school, and a children’s theater, the museum’s back-of-house and public-facing programs were overlapping, requiring a radical reorganization of its daily operations and a transformed visitor experience.
To achieve this, a careful plan was devised to prune excess walls and volumes and identify suitable locations for new galleries and social programs. The design strategy treated architecture and landscape as intrinsically linked, opening up the museum’s programs to the site and the flow of visitors. By incorporating a new, organic organizational spine fused precisely into the original structure, the design unites the existing volumes and clarifies their connections. Additionally, new interior and exterior connections are embedded into a revitalized park environment. The building blossoms outward into the park, creating pleasurable destinations for socializing, relaxation, and informal art viewing. Establishing a campus where culture and nature reinforce each other, the project ushers in a new phase of growth for the museum, aiming to regenerate the institution’s role in the life of the community and expand its capacity and reach.
[1] The building sector produces twenty-one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions each year, and thirty-one percent of global carbon (CO²) emissions each year. See the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change,” Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group III, April 4, 2022, https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6/wg3/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_Full_Report.pdf.
[2] For a full history of the invention and utilization of the concept of obsolescence, see Daniel M. Abramson, Obsolescence: An Architectural History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).
[3] Bruno Latour, “‘We Don’t Seem to Live on the Same Planet’—A Fictional Planetarium,” in Designs for Different Futures, ed. Kathryn Hiesinger et al. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019).
[4] Bruno Latour, “‘We Don’t Seem to Live on the Same Planet.’”
This text is an extract from The art of architectural grafting, published by Park Books.