I’ve had the pleasure of helping to set up two of the most important masters courses in environmental design and architecture in London in recent years. First was the MSc Architecture and Environmental Design at the University of Westminster – an excellent technically-driven course details here. More recently I helped to set up the MA Environmental Architecture at the Royal College of Art – a very different kind of course organised around much more multi-scalar geopolitical agendas details here.
A few weeks ago we had the first exhibition of the MA Environmental Architecture -Inter-Temporal Ecologies: In More Than Human Worlds – in collaboration with the wonderful Arts Catalyst Centre for Art, Science & Technology
We presented three days of exhibition, performances, workshops and discussion – I chaired two sessions: on kinship, and water.
Intertemporal Ecologies: In More Than Human Worlds celebrates the work of the inaugural cohort of MA Environmental Architecture, Royal College of Art, exploring the future of environments, landscapes and ecosystems. It presents elements selected from the body of work produced collectively and individually over the last 15 months.
The research focuses on the environmental and territorial disputes resulting from the extraction on lithium in the Salar de Atacama, in Chile: on the one side lithium emerges as a key component in the global pathways to mitigating climate change; and on the other, its extraction results in the appropriation of water – a living being at the heart of fragile ecosystems and indigenous territories.
The work presented reflects upon the role of design and architecture at the intersection of these incommensurable demands, while recognising the complex system of relationships and entanglements they are part of. The exhibition brings together the dynamic cycles of both mental, social and material ecologies that inform diverse relationships between human, non-human and other than human beings. Through a programme of workshops, talks and conversations the event will explore the past, present and future of environments as more than human worlds.
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