Open Architecture Talk | Glenn Albrecht: The Symbiocene

The School of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of Newcastle is delighted to be hosting Glenn Albrecht through our Open Architecture Talk series. These talks are free and open for students, practitioners, and the broader community to come together and ‘open up’ our shared places, practices and projects. This public programming is part of our Visiting Architects and Experts project, that draws in a diversity of voices and perspectives to discuss, workshop and critique the built environment.

Talk Title| The Symbiocene

Glenn A. Albrecht is an Honorary Associate in the School of Geo-sciences, The University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He retired as Professor of Sustainability, Walter Murdoch University, in mid-2014. He continues to work as an environmental philosopher and published, Earth Emotions, 2019.

In numerous publications and public talks over the last two decades, Dr Albrecht has developed the theme of the psychoterratic (psyche-earth), or negative and positive emotional states connected to the state of the Earth. While he is best known for creating the concept of solastalgia, or the lived experience of negative environmental change, his most recent work develops the paradigm of the 'Symbiocene', a future state where humans symbiotically re-integrate with the rest of life in nature.The Symbiocene is now an inspiration for architects and designers as the task of transitioning from the Anthropocene to the Symbiocene becomes a practical necessity.

In anticipation of his next book, 'The Symbiocene: Our Only Future' (CUP 2026), Glenn is contributing to national and international public debate on key issues connected to the human-nature relationship. He gave the prestigious annual Frederik van Eeden Lecture, 'Transformation to The Symbiocene', at the International School for Philosophy (ISVW) in the Netherlands. He was a guest of Nantes University in January 2025.

Dr Glenn Albrecht's psychoterratic approach to the key issues of the early twenty-first century will assist in our transition from an ecocidal form of society to genuinely symbiotic forms of human living.

In this Open Architecture Lecture, Glenn will explore these themes and give insight into his philosophies - as described below. 

My book, Earth Emotions, is an account of the relationship between the state of the Earth and our mental and emotional states. It presents a now commonly accepted scenario that during the epoch known as the Anthropocene, our relationship to the total Earth has turned bad. Not only have we threatened the health of the planet with a toxic, cruel, parasitic, extractive and wasteful economy, but we have also triggered an avalanche of mental and emotional distress on humans and non-humans all over the planet. The negative psychoterratic (psyche-Earth) mental and emotional health impacts of the Anthropocene, or age of attempted human dominance, have included my concepts of solastalgia, global dread and tierratrauma, and, from many others, eco-anxiety, eco-grief and ecoparalysis. In other words, the lack of intelligence as represented by the ecocidal Anthropocene and its tragically flawed anthropocentric thinking is leading us to sickness then extinction. In order to confront our imminent collapse, we need the very opposite of the despotism of the Anthropocene. An actively created symbiotic relationship with the rest of life on this wonderful planet is one that emerges from positive psychoterratic mental and emotional states. These include my concepts of soliphilia, eutierria, endemophilia and, from many others, topophilia, biophilia and ecophilia. The combination of positive psychoterratic states and life-affirming science and technology will give point and purpose to those who undertake this transformational work. From a healthy mental and biophysical base, we humans can build a new epoch, the Symbiocene, using bioscience and symbioactive technologies that are safe, renewable and non-polluting. As the Anthropocene collapses, the Symbiocene must be built. Bad growth (dysbiosis) is transformed by human intelligence into good growth (symbiosis). In other words, the anthropocentric thinking of the Anthropocene needs to be supplanted by symbiocentric thinking in the Symbiocene. We move from a death and disease economy into a living and healthy one.

Venue| Room X321 Nuspace, Hunter St &, Auckland St, Newcastle NSW 2300

Time| 6pm

We look forward to seeing you there!