Fall 2019

Edited by Nicholas Pevzner & Stephanie Carlisle

Infrastructure is always political, and energy transitions have always been contested, pitting established players against upstart technologies and new coalitions. How can a radical reimagining of energy infrastructure create opportunities for an inclusive and participatory conversation about climate change and social justice? Who has the power to talk about infrastructure, and who gets left out?
Introduction: Power
Community Power As Provocation: Local Control For Resilience And Equity
Our Energy For Our Country
Speculative Designs For Energy Democracy
The TVA, Fuzzy Spaces Of Power, And Other Purposes
The Missouri River Basin: Water, Power, Decolonization, And Design
Power Plant Power
Arctic Present: The Case Of Teriberka
Coal Ash Wastescapes: The Byproduct Of Our Coal-Fired Power Dependency
Biomass For All: Designing An Inclusive Biomass Infrastructure
China’s Giant Transmission Grid Could Be The Key To Cutting Climate Emissions
2050 – An Energetic Odyssey: Persuasion By Collective Immersion
The Blue Lagoon: From Waste Commons To Landscape Commodity
Territory Of Extraction: The Crude North
Daylighting Conflict: Board Games As Decision-Making Tools

Popular

    The Performative Ground: Rediscovering The Deep Section

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    The landscape we see happens above ground, yet much of its true intelligence lies beneath the surface.

    Yangtze River Delta Project

    by Catherine Seavitt

    Coastal urban estuaries are dynamic sites. These sedimentary terrains must be reconsidered at the infrastructural scale to create a more resilient and adaptive landscape, a system that dynamically responds to the increasing risks of the coastal environment.

    Reconsidering the Underworld of Urban Soils

    by Laura Solano

    If we truly understood the delicacy of soil as a dynamic living system integral to the health of our towns and cities, we would be more cautious about how it is perceived, treated, and protected.

    How Many Trees are Enough? Tree Death and the Urban Canopy

    by Lara A. Roman

    Realizing the ecosystem services benefits of tree programs depends on tree survival. Despite the focus on planting over the past few decades, overall canopy cover levels in major US cities have been declining.

    One Percent: Mining Bone Valley

    by Rob Holmes, Lauren Sosa & Christie Allen

    Florida is the epicenter of phosphate mining in the United States. The sheer scale of the impact of this extraction on the Floridian landscape is immense. As it grows, phosphate mining is producing enormous accidental monuments to the current American way of life.

    The Blue Lagoon: From Waste Commons to Landscape Commodity

    by Catherine De Almeida

    Waste legibility can be an asset shared by active power generating operations, a novel ecological community, and recreational uses. At the Blue Lagoon, the formalization of a wasteland commons created instead a high-end, privatized spa that conceals the underlying landscape and its unique conditions.

    Feedback: Designing the Dredge Cycle

    by Rob Holmes & Brett Milligan

    Dredging constitutes a sedimentary infrastructure essential to the functioning of contemporary coastal urban systems. Wherever possible, human inputs can and should be opportunistically designed to improve upon degraded natural systems, and to build better natures.

    Skeleton Forms: The Architecture of Infrastructure

    by Laila Seewang

    What determines the boundary of an infrastructural project? How does it overlap with other discrete projects and what part of the larger ‘network’ is adopted into the urban fragment?

    Banyoles

    by Stephanie Carlisle

    Working with the flow of water, the project uses drainage canals to rediscover the medieval settlement built into the limestone. Water once again becomes a protagonist in the life of the city.

    Landscape Urbanism: Definitions & Trajectory

    by Christopher Gray

    Long described as an “emerging” practice, landscape urbanism—with all of its ambiguity and complexity—has in fact already emerged and represents a significant 21st century design and planning ethos.