Beyond Repair: Architecture After Urban Crisis

Beyond Repair: Architecture After Urban Crisis speculates on ecological and technological concepts for architecture after the end, or for a world beyond repair. Culminating in the design of nine videos and short texts featured in an exhibition, the project studies how localized crises are part of larger global catastrophes and will have a significant impact on all Life and Nonlife on the planet in the years to come. Developed in the context of an advanced seminar, students used forensic filmic research and other time-based media to review several spatial phenomena that have changed the shape of landscapes and cities. Each investi¬gation arrived at a fictional narrative that fomented a common understanding of architecture and place that went well beyond geopolitical boundaries and territories. Some of the explorations included: a multi-purpose bridge that mediates climate events and sociopolitical turmoil in Padma, Bangladesh; a restorative sea-wall that protects from toxic emissions and preserves marine biodiversity in Odessa, Ukraine; a genetically-engineered eucalyptus that exacerbated wildfires and moved entire towns underground in Canberra, Australia; a series of mining machinery transformed into seed-proliferating vehicles that restore a damaged ecosystem in Tarkwa, Ghana; and more. These provocations reimagined architecture’s roles and scope in social and cultural production in the years to come and through deep time. To arrive at them, the course was structured in three parts: research, techniques and methodologies, and final production.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.Teach.2023.39

Volume Editors
Massimo Santanicchia

ISBN
978-1-944214-44-9