After three weeks of intense reflections, meet the exhausted international participants of How to: do no harm as we present our new publication for the first time. Every building prevents the existence of other things—either for a while or forever. Is there another way? Can there be construction without harm? How much damage is worth participating in? What is “worth it” and who decides? Is there any way out?

Following an open call to which 68 applicants from over 20 countries responded, we invited eight architectural thinkers to gather online and in person for three weeks of intense research, interviews, discussion, and provocation. On September 16, meet Bailey Morgan Brown Mitchell (Stillwater, Oklahoma), Amélie de Bonnière (Cape Town, South Africa), Loránd Mittay (Berlin, Germany), Mariana Meneguetti (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Marianna Janowicz (London, UK), Samarth Vachhrajani (New Haven Connecticut/Vadodara, India), Sophie Weston Chien (Cambridge, Massachusetts), and Swati Janu (Delhi, India).

Since 2018, the CCA’s annual “How to” residency has produced interventions in para-architectural activities like publishing (How to: not make an architecture magazine), curation (How to: disturb the public), and awards (How to: reward and punish). The residency was conceived as a platform for rapid tool-making in response to specific opportunities and needs, and in 2022 it began a new three-year cycle focused on accelerating changes in architectural practice, beginning with architect hybrids (How to: not become a developer.).

“How to: do no harm” is curated by Lev Bratishenko, CCA Curator, Public, and Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Assistant Professor of Architectural and Urban Design at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL).