Fall 2019

Edited by Nicholas Pevzner & Stephanie Carlisle

Infrastructure is always political, and energy transitions have always been contested, pitting established players against upstart technologies and new coalitions. How can a radical reimagining of energy infrastructure create opportunities for an inclusive and participatory conversation about climate change and social justice? Who has the power to talk about infrastructure, and who gets left out?
Introduction: Power
Community Power As Provocation: Local Control For Resilience And Equity
Our Energy For Our Country
Speculative Designs For Energy Democracy
The TVA, Fuzzy Spaces Of Power, And Other Purposes
The Missouri River Basin: Water, Power, Decolonization, And Design
Power Plant Power
Arctic Present: The Case Of Teriberka
Coal Ash Wastescapes: The Byproduct Of Our Coal-Fired Power Dependency
Biomass For All: Designing An Inclusive Biomass Infrastructure
China’s Giant Transmission Grid Could Be The Key To Cutting Climate Emissions
2050 – An Energetic Odyssey: Persuasion By Collective Immersion
The Blue Lagoon: From Waste Commons To Landscape Commodity
Territory Of Extraction: The Crude North
Daylighting Conflict: Board Games As Decision-Making Tools

Popular

    Made in Australia: The Future of Australian Cities

    by Richard Weller & Julian Bolleter

    The Australian population is increasing at a rate of one person every 84 seconds. Taking population growth seriously means planning for an extra 40 million Australians by century’s end.

    The Hole World: Scales and Spaces of Extraction

    by Gavin Bridge

    Landscapes of energy extraction are portals, wormholes between two worlds in which time and space work differently.

    The Missouri River Basin: Water, Power, Decolonization, and Design

    by Kees Lokman

    Decolonization is a complex and multifaceted process that involves examining and denouncing colonialism; recovering and adopting Indigenous knowledge, language and practices, and; undertaking scholarly projects that address the needs of Indigenous communities.

    Introduction: Extraction

    by Stephanie Carlisle and Nicholas Pevzner

    Extraction sustains our society. The economic value of raw materials regularly outweighs concerns about the practices and processes required to bring them to market. But have we really grappled with the complex systems that landscapes of extraction expose?

    The Performative Ground: Rediscovering The Deep Section

    by Stephanie Carlisle and Nicholas Pevzner

    The landscape we see happens above ground, yet much of its true intelligence lies beneath the surface.

    Brooklyn Bridge Park

    by Sarah Kathleen Peck

    Currently under construction, Brooklyn Bridge Park will eventually encompass approximately eighty-five acres and 1.3 miles of the previously industrial waterfront directly across from downtown Manhattan.

    Arctic Present: The Case of Teriberka

    by Viktoria Khokhlova

    The landscape of a country is always a playground for political events. So it is in the case of Russia, where over the past century, across a huge territory, almost all the landscape of the country has undergone significant changes as a consequence of evolving political and strategic interests.

    Daylighting Conflict: Board Games as Decision-Making Tools

    by Janette Kim

    Games can unearth new sites of power and a recharged vision of inclusivity in the face of crisis. This essay presents a series of original board games designed to expose the political contestations embroiled in climate risk.

    Power, Climate and the Green New Deal

    by Nicholas Pevzner & Stephanie Carlisle

    The topic of power has been in the news a lot lately: with literal power outages and rampant abuses of power in politics and public life. We've also been thinking about the power of stories and authentic voices. The last few months have seen a wave of climate events from the Global Climate Strike to the U.N. Climate Action Summit. In the US, we're following the Green New Deal and the ways that re-centering the climate conversation on issues of justice might just change everything.

    Extraction

    by Stephanie Carlisle and Nicholas Pevzner

    Extraction sustains our society. As the world becomes more urban and further removed from the landscapes that supply its raw materials and energy needs, more and more land is mined, blasted, dug, and drilled each year. How do these extraction landscapes fit into larger urban social, economic, and ecological frameworks? How can we bridge the disconnect between the city and its extractive hinterland?