Study Architecture 
ProPEL 
Author(s): Christianna Bennett
The relationship between architecture and landscape must undergo fundamental change to deal with the urgency of the climate crisis, adapt to changing cultural values, and support local environmental conditions. Although there has been progress in modifying architectural construction methods and implementing the use of sustainable materials, structures continue to depend on extractive infrastructure through integrated building systems such as electricity, telecom, heating, and cooling. The ongoing reliance on extractive infrastructure bonds architecture to exploitative technologies and industries, which has fundamentally altered its relation to landscape. At present, architecture relies on an abundance of fuel from distant locations to operate, and ignores its surroundings as a result. In recent design studios, I ask students to generate alternate connections between architecture and environment. Specifically, I teach students how to critically disengage from extractive processes and systems, and instead knit architecture into local ecosystems. This is achieved through critical analysis of existing infrastructure and the design of new systems. Supported by the integration of interdisciplinary perspectives, the rewiring of systems results in new, speculative architectural typologies that engage reciprocally with complex ecologies. According to this framework, students interrogate the role architecture plays in the sustenance of the environment and are challenged to design in ways that depart from the status quo. Lessons include a) direct observation and interpretation of nature, b) translation of observations and interpretation into systems-focused interventions, c) an integrative approach linking systems and objects, and d) exercises in ‘making worlds’ and ‘futuring,’ for forming speculative narratives about architecture’s future role in the environment. By addressing these issues, architecture becomes an instrument for reimagining human relationships with nature and serves as the basis for forming new bonds with the environment.
https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AM.112.31
Volume Editors
Germane Barnes & Blair Satterfield
ISBN
978-1-944214-45-6
