PROPOSITIONS STUDIO
ARCH 672/692 + MUD 732 S/F 2025
Objects of Subsistence
STUDENT

Erin Roberts


PROFESSOR

Clément Blanchet


In the Camargue, a 930-square-kilometer marshland in southern France, rising sea levels are increasing salinity, collapsing agricultural practice, and submerging land, which will be underneath a meter of water within fifty years. Rather than resist inevitable retreat, this proposition embraces surrender through deployable architectures built from locally harvested reeds. Thriving in brackish conditions, reed forms a biodegradable kit of parts assembled without nails or glue, enabling local farmers, fishers, and hunters to construct adaptable Objects of Subsistence. As waters rise, these objects transition from tools for human cultivation to environmental scaffolds, supporting the ecologies until they become the architecture itself.