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 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.

    Gold Mining Exploits and the Legacies of Johannesburg's Mining Landscapes

    by Guy Trangos & Kerry Bobbins

    An extensive network of abandoned mine shafts and tunnels exist beneath Johannesburg. Today, these spaces are lost to time, long forgotten and abandoned below the surface of the Earth.

    Butte Montana: A Case for the Mining Metropolis

    by Bradford Watson & Sean Burkholder

    Extraction is an ugly process. Still, the vast resources present beneath the ground and the motivation to pull them to the surface are intimately tied to the settlement and permanent occupation of the landscape.

    The Blue Lagoon: From Waste Commons to Landscape Commodity

    by Catherine De Almeida

    Waste legibility can be an asset shared by active power generating operations, a novel ecological community, and recreational uses. At the Blue Lagoon, the formalization of a wasteland commons created instead a high-end, privatized spa that conceals the underlying landscape and its unique conditions.

    China’s giant transmission grid could be the key to cutting climate emissions

    by James Temple

    But are the country’s next-generation power lines a clean-power play or a global power move?

    Landscape Urbanism: Definitions & Trajectory

    by Christopher Gray

    Long described as an “emerging” practice, landscape urbanism—with all of its ambiguity and complexity—has in fact already emerged and represents a significant 21st century design and planning ethos.

    From Landscaping to Infrastructure: The Scope and Agency of Maintenance

    by Michael Geffel

    Maintenance operations are often overlooked, but they are not neutral. If considered as an infrastructural service underlying all landscape, redesigning maintenance offers a tool to effect change at a vast scale.

    Rethinking Infrastructure

    by Stephanie Carlisle and Nicholas Pevzner

    Infrastructure underlies and shapes urban growth, yet exists outside the realm of many design discussions. As landscape advocates and practitioners argue for a central role in the design of cities, many are starting to ask, how can a focus on landscape transform traditional conceptions of urban and regional infrastructure?

    The Humanity of Infrastructure: Landscape as Operative Ground

    by Dane Carlson

    When landscape is modified and inhabited, it becomes the medium through which humanity can produce, move, and live. As landscape fulfills these roles, it becomes infrastructural.