I dare say that we have had enough of solutions. Whether it concerns plants, solar panels or heat pumps, architecture’s collective faith in solutionism has had its day. All too often, “solutions” merely perpetuate the status quo. Moreover, climate change is only superficially a problem that can be “fixed” with technological solutions. Solutionists think we can muddle through. With policy measures, carbon capture and storage, net zero emissions by 2050. A few adjustments, with positive consequences but nevertheless “only” adjustments – a course correction for our global industrial system, an ecomodernism in which everything remains unchanged, but now powered by clean fuels. Solutions that rectify the situation without upsetting the balance of power.

Taking natural intelligence into account offers some ways out of solutionism. A shady path, so overgrown with plants that it feels damp, clammy and almost unpleasant. Not the cultivated plants of Kew Gardens or the Ford Foundation, which shield natural life from the vagaries of time and space and focus entirely on closed systems for incubation and preservation. No, rather the climbing plants that climb up telephone poles. The typical weeds that pop up in the cracks between the paving stones, proliferate and may even be a little poisonous. The unbearable intrusiveness of nature, which will not and cannot leave us alone. Another form of intelligence.