Low-tech architecture

The low-tech approach, an anglicism used for "low technology," advocates a measured use of technological elements to reduce environmental impacts as much as possible and respond to development challenges in a more sustainable and equitable manner. It is an approach aimed at questioning and evaluating real human needs and thus developing simple, user-friendly, resilient, and inclusive practices. Low-tech acts on system interactions to modify them, taking care not to induce new feedback loops that are destabilizing on the ecological, socioeconomic, and political levels. This book explores the potential of low-tech applied to the fields of architecture and urban planning in the current context of climate and energy crises. The authors present this approach as a response to the excessive use of energy and materials in both the construction of new buildings and renovations. Low-tech is not a doctrine or a catalog of ready-made solutions, but rather a permanent concern for sustainability that applies to an approach rather than a result. Here are brought together field experiments under the aegis of Ademe, which demonstrate the different strategies of economy and rationality in the production phases of objects, spaces, and services, from large urban scale to private space. An invitation to analyze each process and take stock of the choices with regard to their environmental impact, in order to leave a certain technical rigidity in the past.