It is high time for new visions of society—also and especially in architecture. We are witnessing a paradigm shift across design and art disciplines. Reparative politics and practices are on the agenda attempting to heal “the broken world.” The material and social crisis of capitalism are countered by alternative narratives of repair which include the values and practices of care, maintenance, plurality, reappropriation and reparation. Can repair and reparative thinking be positioned as a paradigmatic orientation in our field, alternative to growth-based and techno-fix approaches? How is ethos of repair being turned into praxis? Can we repair and decolonise the curriculum and the construction industry? Can we reform the office, and cultivate material cultures based on care and reciprocity with people and nature?

SESSIONS ON TERRITORY is a series of public debates on the political economy of architecture and territory. Highlighting emerging politics and practices of repair that aim to reduce exploitation, care for what already exists, repair what has been damaged, and conserve resources, the upcoming series will untangle how such alternatives in design education and practice have the potential to counter the condition of manifold crises.

The sessions on repair are embedded within THE GREAT REPAIR, an exhibition and publication project realised in collaboration between ARCH+ gGmbH, the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, the University of Luxembourg’s Department of Geography and Spatial Planning, and the Department of Architecture at ETH Zürich during 2022-23. The recently published ARCH+ 250 The Great Repair: Politiken der Reparaturgesellschaft serves as the departure point for the program.

The six sessions on repair take place on selected Mondays during the spring term. Every intervention by a guest speaker is followed by a discussion with invited respondents.