Housing, dwelling, city, world: Towards an embedded philosophy: Interview with Philippe Simay

This interview with philosopher Philippe Simay takes as its point of departure the television documentary series Habiter le monde, using it as a critical entry into broader reflections on inhabiting, urban aesthetics, and the historical city. Through this audiovisual project, Simay develops what he defines as an “embedded philosophy,” grounded in situated encounters with diverse architectural practices, forms of life, and material environments. The conversation situates inhabiting within a relational framework that connects bodies, spaces, and histories, challenging abstract and universalizing conceptions of the city. Particular attention is devoted to vernacular architecture, material resources, and practices of reuse, understood as socially and politically embedded processes that shape the aesthetic and ethical experience of urban and non-urban spaces alike. In dialogue with contemporary debates on the historical city, the interview proposes an understanding of history not as a static heritage but as a stratified and contested dimension of lived urban experience. The discussion also addresses public space and mediation, highlighting the epistemic role of images and audiovisual formats in articulating the sensory and temporal dimensions of inhabiting. Overall, the text contributes to critical frameworks in urban aesthetics by linking history, materiality, and lived experience within a non-instrumental conception of inhabiting today.