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SUMMARY:Architecture's Landscape | From Forest to Frame: Mass timber in th
 e Pacific Northwest (1980-2015)
DTSTART:20210301T153000
DTEND:20210301T163000
DTSTAMP:20260510T035625Z
UID:173a70cab7ab94c76bb0a2ef34b78a323c2a22878f9b58433e1d3f57
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Laila Seewang is assistant professor in the School of Architec
 ture at Portland State University where she teaches design studios and ar
 chitectural and urban history and theory. She also sits on the Board of Di
 rectors of Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative. She is a registe
 red architect and an architectural historian and theorist whose research u
 ses infrastructure as a lens through which to study environmental and urba
 n design\, in particular during the nineteenth century. She is currently w
 orking on a book manuscript that looks at the role that public water infra
 structure played in Berlin’s nineteenth-century municipal development\, 
 and researching the infrastructure of timber modernism in the Pacific Nort
 hwest. She is the co-editor of a special double issue of Architectural The
 ory Review\, Timber Constructed: Towards an Alternative Material History (
 2021) and has also written about German architectural historiography\, pub
 lic toilets in Berlin\, brick manufacturing in Brandenburg\, and rapid san
 d filters in central Massachusetts.\nArchitecture’s Landscape examines d
 ifferent environments created for and by architectural production in order
  to broaden the notion of design as practice that extends beyond the build
 ing.  Architectural history and theory are increasingly concerned with th
 e impacts that the construction industry has on the environment\, from ext
 raction to carbon footprints to waste production. These lectures analyse t
 he specific nature of these impacts by using infrastructure as a lens thro
 ugh which to view architectural production as a flow of materials across m
 ultiples scales\, from environment to network to building to detail. It si
 multaneously challenges the narratives that are used to describe these arc
 hitectures. This work unravels a series of material flow chains to reposit
 ion the building as only one part of the designed flow of wood\, water\, a
 nd clay.\n\nWhile questions about the relation of architecture to its envi
 ronment are increasingly prevalent among architectural historians and theo
 rists in general\, materiality offers a very tangible way of making visibl
 e architecture’s complicity in larger environmental issues. These lectur
 es are a methodological proposition: can we\, as architectural theorists\,
  designers\, or historians\, resituate architecture into an expanded narra
 tive about design whereby materiality is both the built (building) and unb
 uilt (landscape)\, but also the visible (structures) as well as the invisi
 ble (through policies and institutions)? By looking at design in this way\
 , can we understand the choices made within the assemblage as design choic
 es that paired infrastructure with narrative? Together\, these lectures of
 fer a new approach to understanding architecture by focusing on design—e
 nvironmental design\, technological design\, building design\, and the des
 ign of material flows.\n\nFrom Forest to Frame: Mass timber in the Pacific
  Northwest\nIt is argued that using timber for buildings can produce more 
 sustainable cities. Can it also create a more resilient material flow chai
 n\, a timber territory? This lecture looks at the relationship of the timb
 er territory in the Pacific Northwest in relation to innovations in mass t
 imber. It asks\, in what way do we need to update our narratives about tim
 ber architecture\, and the way we manage forests\, in order to produce not
  just a sustainable new building typology\, but a resilient regional lands
 cape. Mapping timber territory as an assemblage\, this lecture investigate
 s volcano eruptions\, the Pacific log trade\, deforestation\, spotted owls
 \, and stories of frontier independence to challenge the long-standing pre
 sumptions of ‘place’ in regional architecture by asking\, what kind of
  place has the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest actually defined\,
  both abroad and locally.\n\nThis lecture is the first of three given with
 in the frame of the ALICE y1 programme.
LOCATION:https://epfl.zoom.us/j/99758098828
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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