Three momentous changes, occurring only within the last decade, are having a lasting effect on our planet: 1. More people now live in cities than in the countryside, an unprecedented occasion in human history; 2. There is now a consensus that human activity is a powerful, adverse contributor to climate change; 3. A new revolution is underway—replacing the previous model created by the Industrial Revolution—that is based on a search for alternative, renewable energy generation and sustainable living. The intention of this course is to research the myriad consequences of these radical changes to the city, and explore how architectural and urban design is adapting to address these changes.
The course will investigate a series of interrelated themes of fundamental importance to the health of cities: political will and political failure in the determination of urban policy; the role of the automobile in the propagation of suburban sprawl; demographic challenges (shrinking versus expanding cities); the enduring influence of specific modern urban movements (Garden City, modernism, postmodernism, “Critical Reconstruction,” “New Urbanism”); contrasting patterns of racism, poverty, and immigration; the emergence of a "planet of slums;" security in an age of war, chronic criminality, and terrorism; the threat of disease and epidemics. Global warming and environmental degradation will be a central concern. The accelerated consumption of oil and energy, the unregulated creation and dispersion of pollution, the alarming increase of CO2 emissions, and the consequent alterations to the earth's climatic equilibrium are no longer phenomena that can be ignored by architects and urban planners.
Attention will be devoted to the advent of the "Mega-city" (those now hosting populations of more than 10 million: Shanghai, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Lagos, etc.) and the "Instant City" (those constructed in just a few years on previously unsettled land: Dubai, Abu Dhabi, new cities in China). These two urban types, which demonstrate explosive growth, tell us a great deal about the concerns facing planners today and the limits of sustainable urbanism. Other cities, mainly in the developed world, demonstrate the opposite tendency, because they are shrinking (Detroit, Leipzig, Manchester, etc.). A handful of these cities will be examined in the course as case studies, particularly as sites on which new ideas in sustainable design are being implemented (or not).
The main urban case study, however, will be the city of Berlin and its surroundings, for it is here that a rich variety of trendsetting German projects of sustainable design can be experienced firsthand. These building projects offer exciting solutions for the use of recycled energy, efficient lighting, natural materials, converted infrastructure, and ecological/political coordination, and we will visit several during scheduled field trips. The resulting insights into strategies for creating livable, socially responsible urban environments will be valuable both to students of architecture and those outside the discipline. For indeed, cities have always reflected the combined efforts of human civilization and will continue to require interdisciplinary teamwork to survive and flourish.
Learning outcomes:
By the end of the course students will be able to:
Explain the problems facing cities during the next few decades and some proposed solutions to these problems, whether they are technical, political, economic, or aesthetic.
Describe German approaches to green or sustainable design, having seen a variety of examples of progressive architecture and urbanism in and around Berlin.
Evaluate the varieties of urban transformation in other cities having used Berlin as a comparative model.
Demonstrate how the principal forces, positive and negative, affect contemporary urban development.
Method of presentation:
in class slide lectures and discussions; site visits
Required work and form of assessment:
Participation 20%. Participate in class discussions.
Paper/Project: 40%. A paper/project (in a variety of possible media) will investigate themes related to the course material
Final exam: 40%. Students will write a final exam in which their understanding of the material covered during the course will be demonstrated.
content:
Session 1 (in class- 3 hours): Peak Oil and Climate Change
Reading:
Thomas L. Friedman, “Today’s Date: 1 E.C.E. Today’s Weather: Hot, Flat, and Crowded,” in Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0 (New York: Picador, 2009).
Session 2 (in class– 1,5 hours): Case Study. The Wages of Globalization/Instant and Mega-Cities— Dubai vs. Lagos
Readings:
Mike Davis, “Sand, Fear, and Money in Dubai,” in Evil Paradises: Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism (New York: The New Press, 2007).
George Packer, “The Megacity: Decoding the chaos of Lagos,” in The New Yorker, November 13, 2006.
Session 3 (field trip- 3 hours): On Location
Site-visit, Berlin
Norman Foster, Free University Philological Library (2005)
Reading:
Norman Foster, “Architecture and Sustainability,” (2003).
Ression 4 (in class- 1.5 hours): The Urban Dimension
Readings:
Peter Newman, Timothy Beatley, Heather Boyer, “A Vision for Resilient Cities: The Built Environment,” in Resilient Cities: Responding to Peak Oil and Climate Change (Washington DC: Island Press, 2009).
Alex Krieger, “The Costs—and Benefits—of Sprawl: A Historical Perspective,” in Harvard Design Magazine 19, Fall 2003/Winter 2004.
Session 5 (in class- 3 hours): Urban Ecology
Readings:
Rem Koolhaas, “Junk Space,” in Content (Köln: Taschen, 2004).
Carol J. Burns, “High-Performance Sites,” in Site Matters: Design Concepts, Histories, and Strategies (New York: Routledge, 2005).
Session 9 (field trip- 3 hours): On Location
Site-visit Berlin, Adlershof (City of Science, Technology and Media)
Schulte-Frohlinde, Solon Photovoltaic Corporate Headquarters, (2008) and Augustin + Frank Architekten, Institute for Physics, Humboldt University,(2002)
Reading:
Manfred Hegger, “Doing things right—on efficiency and sustainability,” in M. Hegger, M. Fuchs, T.
Stark, M. Zeumer, Energy Manual: Sustainable Architecture (Berlin: Birkhäuser, Edition Detail, 2008).
Session 10 (in class– 1,5 hours): Case Study. Urbs et ex urbis—New York City vs. Las Vegas
Readings:
David Owen, “Embodied Efficiency,” in Green Metropolis (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009).
Nicole Huber and Ralph Stern, “Las Vegas—From Excess to Environment,” in Return of Landscape, Donata Valentien, ed. (Berlin: Jovis Verlag, 2010).
Session 11 (in class – 3 hours): German Ecology/ Policy and Practices
Reading:
Björn Stigson et al., “Sustainable Development in Germany,” and “Pathways to 2050,” in Peer Review on Sustainable Development Practices in Germany, pages 1-24 (Berlin: German Council for Sustainable Development, September 2009).
Session 12 (field trip- 1,5 hours): On Location
Site-visit:
Berlin: Norman Foster, Reichstag conversion to modern Bundestag (1999)
Reading:
Norman Foster, “The Reichstag Energy Story,” first published in Spektrum der Wissenschaft, February 1999.
Session 13 (in class– 3 hours): Green Revolution (+ Final Exam) Reading:
Jared Diamond, “The World as a Polder: What does It All Mean To Us Today?” in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (New York: Penguin, 2006).
Other recommended self-guided excursion sites (and possible project topics):
Berlin: Park auf dem Gleisdreieck, Anhalter Guterbahnhof, Yorkstrasse (2010-)
e2a Architekten, Heinrich Böll Foundation, Schumannstrasse 8 (2008)
Berlin: Petzinka, Pink und Partner, Representation of North Rhine-Westphalia (2002)
CASA NOVA Architekten, Kienberg Viertel, model Plattenbau renovation, Berlin-Hellersdorf (1996) vs. GESOBAU, Märkisches Viertel, ongoing renovation (2008- 16), Berlin-Reinickendorf
Eberswalde: Landesratsamt/Paul-Wunderlich-Haus; GAP
Dessau: Federal Environmental Agency; Sauerbruch & Hutton
Hamburg: Green urbanism at the Hafenstadt including Marco-Polo Tower; Stefan Behnisch; Unilever Konzernzentrale; Behnisch
Required readings:
The Endless City, Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic, eds. (London: Phaidon, 2007).
Reyner Banham, The Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment (Second Edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).
Mike Davis, Evil Paradises: Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism (New York: The New Press, 2007).
Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (New York: Verso, 2006).
Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (New York: Viking Press, 2005).
Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Jeff Speck, Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream (New York: North Point Press, 2000).
Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson, Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
Jacques Ferrier,“The Sensual City: The Artificial Enabling the Sensual,” in the Harvard Design Magazine, Spring/Summer 2009, #30.
Thomas L. Friedman, Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0 (New York: Picador, 2009).
M. Hegger, M. Fuchs, T. Stark, M. Zeumer, Energy Manual: Sustainable Architecture (Berlin: Birkhäuser, Edition Detail, 2008).
Lisa Heschong, Thermal Delight in Architecture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985).
Tony Judt, “Europe vs. America,” The New York Review of Books, February 10, 2005.
Rem Koolhaas, “Junk Space,” in Content (Köln: Taschen, 2004).
Mohsen Mostafavi, ed., Ecological Urbanism, (Baden: Harvard University GSD, Lars Müller Publishers, 2010).
Peter Newman, Timothy Beatley, Heather Boyer, Resilient Cities: Responding to Peak Oil and Climate Change (Washington DC: Island Press, 2009).
Phillip Oswalt, ed., Shrinking Cities Volume 1: International Research (Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2005).
David Owen, Green Metropolis (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009).
Brief Biography of Instructor:
Raised in New York City, Jan Otakar Fischer graduated from Williams College in 1985 with Honors in the History of Ideas and later went to the Harvard University Graduate School of Design to receive his Masters in Architecture in 1990. He is a regular contributor to a wide range of publications, including The New York Times, the Harvard Design Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, and the Architectural Record, writing chiefly about European architecture and urbanism. Since 2009 he has been a contributing editor at Places magazine (http://places.designobserver.com/). He teaches urban studies and history at the IES Berlin Metropolitan Studies Program, and has served as an invited guest critic or lecturer at the Technische Universität in Berlin, the University of Warsaw Architecture School, and the Architectural Association in London. He has worked as an architect in Berlin since 1994. He was co- founder of the Lexia Berlin Architecture Program, and now teaches history and sustainable practices to undergraduates of the Northeastern University School of Architecture Berlin Program.
Global Challenges To The 21St Century City: Design And The Promise Of Sustainability
Three momentous changes, occurring only within the last decade, are having a lasting effect on our planet: 1. More people now live in cities than in the countryside, an unprecedented occasion in human history; 2. There is now a consensus that human activity is a powerful, adverse contributor to climate change; 3. A new revolution is underway—replacing the previous model created by the Industrial Revolution—that is based on a search for alternative, renewable energy generation and sustainable living. The intention of this course is to research the myriad consequences of these radical changes to the city, and explore how architectural and urban design is adapting to address these changes.
The course will investigate a series of interrelated themes of fundamental importance to the health of cities: political will and political failure in the determination of urban policy; the role of the automobile in the propagation of suburban sprawl; demographic challenges (shrinking versus expanding cities); the enduring influence of specific modern urban movements (Garden City, modernism, postmodernism, “Critical Reconstruction,” “New Urbanism”); contrasting patterns of racism, poverty, and immigration; the emergence of a "planet of slums;" security in an age of war, chronic criminality, and terrorism; the threat of disease and epidemics. Global warming and environmental degradation will be a central concern. The accelerated consumption of oil and energy, the unregulated creation and dispersion of pollution, the alarming increase of CO2 emissions, and the consequent alterations to the earth's climatic equilibrium are no longer phenomena that can be ignored by architects and urban planners.
Attention will be devoted to the advent of the "Mega-city" (those now hosting populations of more than 10 million: Shanghai, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Lagos, etc.) and the "Instant City" (those constructed in just a few years on previously unsettled land: Dubai, Abu Dhabi, new cities in China). These two urban types, which demonstrate explosive growth, tell us a great deal about the concerns facing planners today and the limits of sustainable urbanism. Other cities, mainly in the developed world, demonstrate the opposite tendency, because they are shrinking (Detroit, Leipzig, Manchester, etc.). A handful of these cities will be examined in the course as case studies, particularly as sites on which new ideas in sustainable design are being implemented (or not).
The main urban case study, however, will be the city of Berlin and its surroundings, for it is here that a rich variety of trendsetting German projects of sustainable design can be experienced firsthand. These building projects offer exciting solutions for the use of recycled energy, efficient lighting, natural materials, converted infrastructure, and ecological/political coordination, and we will visit several during scheduled field trips. The resulting insights into strategies for creating livable, socially responsible urban environments will be valuable both to students of architecture and those outside the discipline. For indeed, cities have always reflected the combined efforts of human civilization and will continue to require interdisciplinary teamwork to survive and flourish.
By the end of the course students will be able to:
in class slide lectures and discussions; site visits
Participation 20%. Participate in class discussions.
Paper/Project: 40%. A paper/project (in a variety of possible media) will investigate themes related to the course material
Final exam: 40%. Students will write a final exam in which their understanding of the material covered during the course will be demonstrated.
Session 1 (in class- 3 hours): Peak Oil and Climate Change
Reading:
Session 2 (in class– 1,5 hours): Case Study. The Wages of Globalization/Instant and Mega-Cities— Dubai vs. Lagos
Readings:
Session 3 (field trip- 3 hours): On Location
Site-visit, Berlin
Reading:
Ression 4 (in class- 1.5 hours): The Urban Dimension
Readings:
Session 5 (in class- 3 hours): Urban Ecology
Readings:
Session 6 (in class– 1,5 hours): Case Study. Post-Industrial and Post-Socialist Shrinking Cities— Detroit vs. Leipzig/Halle
Readings:
Session 7 (in class- 3 hours): The Comfort Zone/Low-Tech vs. High-Tech Design
Reading:
Session 8 (field trip- 1,5 hours): On Location
Site-visit Berlin
Reading:
Session 9 (field trip- 3 hours): On Location
Site-visit Berlin, Adlershof (City of Science, Technology and Media)
Reading:
Session 10 (in class– 1,5 hours): Case Study. Urbs et ex urbis—New York City vs. Las Vegas
Readings:
Session 11 (in class – 3 hours): German Ecology/ Policy and Practices
Reading:
Session 12 (field trip- 1,5 hours): On Location
Site-visit:
Reading:
Session 13 (in class– 3 hours): Green Revolution (+ Final Exam) Reading:
Other recommended self-guided excursion sites (and possible project topics):
Raised in New York City, Jan Otakar Fischer graduated from Williams College in 1985 with Honors in the History of Ideas and later went to the Harvard University Graduate School of Design to receive his Masters in Architecture in 1990. He is a regular contributor to a wide range of publications, including The New York Times, the Harvard Design Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, and the Architectural Record, writing chiefly about European architecture and urbanism. Since 2009 he has been a contributing editor at Places magazine (http://places.designobserver.com/). He teaches urban studies and history at the IES Berlin Metropolitan Studies Program, and has served as an invited guest critic or lecturer at the Technische Universität in Berlin, the University of Warsaw Architecture School, and the Architectural Association in London. He has worked as an architect in Berlin since 1994. He was co- founder of the Lexia Berlin Architecture Program, and now teaches history and sustainable practices to undergraduates of the Northeastern University School of Architecture Berlin Program.