Asphalt Soils. Paradoxes and Reappraisals in Urban Landscapes

Representing the very quintessence of smooth, aseptic, solid, impermeable urban surfaces, asphalt is the sublimation of modernity, indisputably a representative element of the contemporary Western civilisation. The worldwide spreading of asphalt makes it a material of impact at the scale of the planet, but the intensive use has contributed to the more frequent occurrence of a series of challenges in cities such as flooding, heat islands, runoff water pollutants, mono-functionality of public spaces. Nowadays, it has come to stand for the detrimental and unpleasant aspects of urbanity. For this reason, it is often disregarded and undervalued, and as such, its removal is considered imperative. The thesis advances the hypothesis that this perspective on asphalt finds its origins in a deep-rooted moral prejudice about the irreducible separation between city and nature and, more broadly, between human beings and all the other non-human entities that we use to call nature. This separation has multiple consequences: on the one hand, it pushes us to consider ourselves superior to nature and to want to control it; on the other, it makes us to feel guilty because of our detrimental actions (like asphalt pours for instance) thus passive subjects, at the mercy of its whims, destined for salvation if it is benevolent or ruin if it proves hostile; finally in order to compensate to these guilty feeling we elected ourselves as guardians and stewards of nature, again in a position of control. The results may appear to be opposites, but they are complementary: an approach of utilitarian exploitation or an attitude of fatalistic resignation. These behaviours are also the reactions to the actual socio-ecological crisis, catastrophes and collapses. These scenarios require us to urgently reconsider our anthropocentric positioning as terrestrial beings in the world, overcoming the strict and antithetical separation from the non-human. Once acknowledged the connections and responsibilities of the anthropocentric belief to the current crisis, how to dismantle it? How do we reposition ourselves in the world, and therefore how do we act? I suggest that one way forward is to get closer to this special material, without necessarily judging it. Observe it again and try to understand what it is and what it does. This “staying with the asphalt” attitude is an attempt to engage with the complexities and the contradictions of the world and to interpret them without ignoring them. But, why asphalt? First of all, its cumbersome and uncomfortable presence has the capacity to make emerge ethical disagreements concerning the relationship between urbanity, extractivism, consumption and socio-ecological instabilities on a global scale. Secondly, asphalt proves particularly effective in overcoming binomial and oppositional categories such as natural and artificial, inert and living, solid and fluid. Finally, and this is the other fundamental working hypothesis, “staying with the asphalt” is capable of reintroducing the material into soil dynamics. From this point of view, the laying of asphalt is not a priori obliteration or degradation of soil. Rather, it represents a transformation, a peculiar state, a mineral one, which can be virtuous or harmful, depending on how the existing relationships are altered in the specific context in which it operates. Finally, thinking of asphalt as soil has the capacity to redefine and expand our conception of soil, from inert substratum to vibrant process. This is an opening that extends the boundaries of the design practice, finally the way we operate in the word.