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Blue Workshop: Territorial Scale – Recognizing politico-environmental ecologies

Infrastructure Space: Territorial Scale

“It is no longer possible to consider infrastructure as compartmentalized and bounded systems.” – Geoffrey Thün, Associate Professor of Architecture, Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning, University of Michigan, USA.

Geoffrey Thün, Associate Professor of Architecture, Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning, University of Michigan, USA during the workshop Territorial scale: Recognizing politico-environmental ecologies.

Sven Stremke, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, Wageningen University, Netherlands during the workshop Territorial scale: Recognizing politico-environmental ecologies.

Each of the four workshops at the 5th LafargeHolcim Forum were organized as two half-day sessions and examined reorienting human habitation of the planet through infrastructure at four different scales: architectural, metropolitan, territorial, and planetary.

The territorial scale mobile workshop at the LafargeHolcim Forum 2016 explores infrastructure’s capacity for community-building through the Beltline project, a collection of businesses – from a boxing gym to a salvage warehouse – working together to upgrade their common infrastructure.

Gleaners Food Bank (www.gcfb.org) operates five distribution centers including Beaufait Street, and provides food to 535 partner soup kitchens, food pantries, shelters and other agencies throughout southeastern Michigan. Gleaners collects 34.5 million pounds of food a year and distributes 79,000 meals each day including providing nourishing food and nutrition education to 84,700 children a year.

Earthworks Urban Farm (www.cskdetroit.org/earthworks) is a 2.5 acre certified organic farm located in the City of Detroit. As a working study in both social justice and in knowing the origins of the food we eat, Earthworks strives to restore our connection to the environment and community.

Ben Wolf (www.ben-wolf.com) moved to Detroit after growing up in Nashville and working as an artist in New York City. The shared artistic maker space allows him the room he needs for large installation art. His sculptural practice is most often installation driven: to create for a specific space gives life to material and shape, color and space.

The territorial workshop viewed sites in a walking tour stretching from the Iron Belle Trail to the abandoned Packard automotive plant.

The territorial scale mobile workshop explored infrastructure’s capacity for community-building through the Beltline project, a collection of businesses working together to upgrade their common infrastructure.

Infrastructure Space: Territorial Scale

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Sven Stremke, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, Wageningen University, Netherlands during the workshop Territorial scale: Recognizing politico-environmental ecologies.

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The territorial workshop viewed sites in a walking tour stretching from the Iron Belle Trail to the abandoned Packard automotive plant.

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When infrastructure is conceived and constructed at the territorial scale its systems and logics cross boundaries and jurisdictions, territorializing regional geographies. This workshop focused on interdependent, overlapping infrastructures through three dominant themes: water, energy and risk.

Experts

Host Marc Angélil Architect and Professor of Architecture & Design, ETH Zurich, Switzerland and Head of the Academic Committee (AC) of the LafargeHolcim Foundation Read CV »

Moderator Geoffrey Thün Associate Professor of Architecture, Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning, University of Michigan, USA Read CV »

Moderator Kathy Velikov Associate Professor of Architecture, Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning, University of Michigan, USA Read CV »

Bradley Cantrell Associate Professor of Landscape Architectural Technology, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, USA Read CV »

Dilip da Cunha Adjunct Professor, School of Design (PennDesign), University of Pennsylvania, USA Read CV »

Michael Dear Professor, Graduate School, University of California, Berkeley, USA Read CV »

Rania Ghosn Assistant Professor, School of Architecture & Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA Read CV »

Justine Holzman Adjunct Assistant Professor, College of Architecture & Design, University of Tennessee, USA Read CV »

El Hadi Jazairy Assistant Professor of Architecture, Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning, University of Michigan, USA Read CV »

Anuradha Mathur Professor of Landscape Architecture, School of Design (PennDesign), University of Pennsylvania, USA Read CV »

Miho Mazereeuw Assistant Professor and Founding Director, Urban Risk Lab, School of Architecture & Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA Read CV »

Sven Stremke Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, Wageningen University, Netherlands Read CV »

Mobile Workshop Organizer Dan Pitera Executive Director, Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC), Mercy School of Architecture, University of Detroit, USA Read CV »

Mobile Workshop Organizer Diane Van Buren President, Zachary & Associates, USA Read CV »

Timeline

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July 22, 2016 | Blue Workshop Report – Foundations 19

The full complexity of the apparatus

Moderator of the Workshop “Planetary Scale” - Neil Brenner, Professor of Urban Theory & …

Territorial scale – Recognizing politico-environmental ecologies

Infrastructure plays an important role in the organization of society. It is therefore also a political and economic instrument that influences physical and cultural development. This is especially true for infrastructure at the regional and national scales, where the systems cross borders. In our increasingly networked world, such “territorial infrastructure” requires a new basic framework in terms of design, implementation, and usage.

The workshop, moderated by Geoffrey Thün and Kathy Velikov, focused on three categories of territorial infrastructure: infra- structure that protects society against environmental dangers and disasters, infrastructure for handling and distributing resources such as water or energy, and the infrastructure of connectivity. The workshop participants investigated questions such as: What ideological, cultural, economic, social, and political aspects are crucial in the development of these infrastructures? How can the various publics be included in the development process? How is physical infrastructure linked to information technologies?

In her summary report, Kathy Velikov explained that we must not see territorial infrastructure as an isolated element because man- made, biological, geological, and temporal factors are in constant interplay with each other. The question is how we can talk about these systems: “How can we draw them? How do we model them?” This is not a marginal issue – because models are not simply representations but also have political consequences, as shown by the example of Galileo Galilei.

The notion of “apparatus” received great attention in the discussion. “There is a wiring between discourse, institutions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, and philosophical, moral, and philanthropic proposals – and we have to deal with this wiring,” stated Kathy Velikov. Architectural form stands at the center of it all. The task is to design and redesign the elements of the apparatus in order to shape an infrastructure that’s suitable for the future.

One thing is clear: There is no simple guide on how to design territorial infrastructure sustainably for the future – and the associated processes take a lot of time. “And it’s not just about technologies and strategies, but also about issues such as the language of visual display that we must deal with,” reminds Kathy Velikov.

Territorial scale mobile workshop

This mobile workshop also dealt with the interaction between infrastructure and community. The leaders Dan Pitera and Diane van Buren walked with the participants along more than 10 km of the Beltline Greenway, a green corridor along a former railway line, which links various businesses.

One of these is the Earthworks Urban Farm. It is run by a soup kitchen; volunteers participate in the urban agriculture program. Seven large and well-maintained gardens are located around the soup kitchen. This infrastructural facility significantly shapes life in the neighborhood.

Further to the north is the Downtown Boxing Gym. Joe Louis, one of the best and most famous boxers in history, grew up in Detroit, but this gym is not about fame and glory. Established in 2007, the institution has proven highly successful in providing children and young people a safe and interesting place to spend their free time.

A particularly “hands-on” symbol of Detroit rising like a phoenix from its ashes is the Architectural Salvage Warehouse (ASWD), which was the final destination of the mobile workshop. Thou- sands of buildings have been torn down in and around Detroit. The ASWD prepares salvaged building materials for reuse – and has developed innovative systematic processes for recovering as much material as possible during demolition.

read Foundations 19 online (flip-book)

April 08, 2016 | Territorial (Blue) Mobile Workshop – Full-day excursion

Infrastructure’s capacity for community-building

The territorial scale mobile workshop at the LafargeHolcim Forum 2016 explores …

The territorial scale (blue) mobile workshop explores infrastructure’s capacity for community-building through the Beltline project, a collection of businesses – from a boxing gym to a salvage warehouse – working together to upgrade their common infrastructure.

Organizers: Dan Pitera & Diane Van Buren

April 07, 2016 | Territorial (Blue) Workshop

Recognizing politico-environmental ecologies

Focus: When infrastructure is conceived and constructed at the territorial scale its systems and logics cross boundaries and jurisdictions, territorializing regional geographies. This workshop focuses on interdependent, overlapping infrastructures through three dominant themes: water, energy and risk.

Host: Marc Angélil, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Moderators: Geoffrey Thün, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA and Kathy Velikov, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA