Ethnography of the Built Environments

Catalog description

Built environments face several ecological and structural challenges. Aging infrastructure, toxic saturation, and dramatic weather events prompt the need to rework modernist assumptions about built forms and their permanence. This seminar/workshop offers a generative approach to place-making. Drawing upon our respective orientations in the social and natural sciences, as well as in practice-based disciplines such as design, engineering, and environmental studies, we aim to imagine plans better suited to address environmental concerns of the twenty-first century. Readings and methods combine ethnographic and project-oriented case studies that highlight urgent problems in need of undoing, as we collaboratively work towards ideas for rebuilding a sustainable future.