Gaia

Definition

Gaia, in Latour's usage (borrowed from James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis), names the Earth understood as a single, interconnected, and responsive system — no longer the passive "nature" of the modern constitution but an agent whose perturbations (climate change, ecological crisis) intrude into human affairs. Latour's "theory of the new climatic regime" centers on Gaia as a figure that forces the end of the modern separation between nature and culture. For architecture, Gaia demands a response to climate change at the scale of design: buildings and cities are no longer autonomous artifacts but nodes in the critical zone — the thin, fragile film of the Earth's surface where life and matter co-constitute each other.

Key Thinkers

• Bruno Latour — Gaia and the new climatic regime; the critical zone.
• Albena Yaneva — Gaia's architectural implications: design's response to climate change.

Related Concepts

• Ecology — the scientific discourse Gaia reframes politically.
• Sustainability — the practical demand Gaia makes urgent.
• Cosmopolitics — the political form adequate to Gaia's planetary scale.
• Hybrids — Gaia is the ultimate hybrid: nature-culture entangled.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Latour for Architects — Gaia, the new climatic regime, and architecture's response.