Planetary Voids and Architectural Solids

Marly Ibrahim, Design Stream

Simon Rabyniuk, Advisor

Today, rapid urbanization and architecture’s unsustainable addiction to sand/ concrete in ‘feeding’ construction demands has led to a crisis. “Planetary Voids and Architectural Solids” investigates the ubiquitous social and environmental harm caused by unregulated licit and illicit global sand extraction. Shifting between a planetary and regional scale, forensic drawings trace the material flow of sand and concrete from the sites of extraction to distribution, production and consumption. My thesis takes the form of an exhibition, held in an architecture institution – engaging students and the faculty in a conversation often missing in architecture education on the ecological impacts of concrete use, and its violent extraction and production processes. Given the urgency of this issue, harm reduction principles are drawn to challenge architects, builders, developers, and institutions’ complicity in the use of concrete, and are intended to be used as a guide for reducing our rapid sand consumption.