Stranded Assets: Architecture and Energy Transitions

Architecture is essential to the coming energy transition: design plays a role in the technological intensification of energy efficiency, and is also crucial to fostering a culture of low-carbon living. This course examines iconic buildings - Neutra's Lovell House, the Bauhaus Dessau, Mies' Seagram tower, among others - in their energy context in order to understand how architecture has both produced and responded to changing energy regimes. Students combine archival/textual research with visual and performance analysis to produce knowledge about the past that can also inform practice in the climate-changed present.