Anthropocene

The Anthropocene (ˈænθrəpəˌsiːn,_ænˈθrɒpə- ) is a proposed geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change. , neither the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) nor the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) has officially approved the term as a recognised subdivision of geologic time, although the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) of the ICS voted in April 2016 to proceed towards a formal golden spike (GSSP) proposal to define the Anthropocene epoch in the geologic time scale (GTS) and presented the recommendation to the International Geological Congress in August 2016. In May 2019, the AWG voted in favour of submitting a formal proposal to the ICS by 2021, locating potential stratigraphic markers to the mid-20th century of the common era.

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Voyage au centre de la mer, vers un archipel industriel

Muriz Djurdjevic

L'Anthropocène est un terme qui caractérise l'époque géologique qui a débuté lorsque les activités humaines ont eu un impact global significatif sur l'écosystème terrestre. L'urbanisation planétaire, résultant de l'industrialisation, est devenue partie intégrante de notre contexte urbain. Elle ne peut plus être considérée comme une simple dichotomie ville/campagne mais devient un système d'étude complexe qui comprend les divers espaces de production et les réseaux qui les supportent. La mer Baltique, avec sa forte densité d'activités humaines couplée à des caractéristiques géomorphologiques, est l'une des mers les plus polluées sur terre. S'y ajoute une surproduction d'algues: l'eutrophisation. Le projet propose donc une lecture sensible d'un territoire maritime comme espace potentiel d'urbanisation et propose d'intégrer un projet architectural à une réflexion spatiale à plus grande échelle. Ce projet est polytechnique. Ses facettes sont multiples: c'est là son essence. En plus d'être industrie et producteur d'énergie, il intègre également la notion d'habitat en mer. Le projet porte à ce titre un double questionnement, celui du rôle de l'architecture dans l'ère de l'Anthropocène et de la dimension pluridisciplinaire du projet. Il n'est contraint ni par l'étendue de son vaste milieu, la mer Baltique, ni par l'essence de sa fonction: il agrémente et ponctue son environnement afin de cristalliser l'existence d'un processus caché, celui de l'eutrophisation.

2016

The Architecture of the Metacity: Land Use Change, Patch Dynamics and Urban Form in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Martina Barcelloni Corte

This essay analyzes the spatial and temporal dynamics which have emerged from the rapid development of Chiang Mai, Thailand over the last four decades. Modern urbanization since the 1980s in the previously remote Chiang Mai-Lamphun Valley has coincided with digital and financial globalization, neo-liberal governance, and the articulation of a new geological era of the Anthropocene based on evidence of human induced climate change. This time frame serves as a lens to theorize the architecture of the "metacity", a new urban form and new form of urban practice responding to the demands of global digital financial networks and neo-liberal trade policies, but grounded in the ecology and life worlds of particular localities. The metacity appears in Chiang Mai within the interstices of a particularly fragmented rural/urban mix within a self-organized rather than plan-controlled built environment. The entire valley has been the site of intensive inhabitation for centuries, and recently urbanized, yet is spatially heterogeneous, extensive and patchy rather than ordered, bounded and uniform. The resulting landscape is marked by a disjunction between a feudal wet-rice cultivation land tenure structure overlaid with a market-based typology of urban real estate products with little enforcement of land use controls. The essay begins with theorizing the form of the metacity, continues with a description of the Chiang Mai case study, and concludes with a general assessment of the need to create a new form of metacity urban practice. A metacity design practice would re-conceptualize urban theories and forms by inking architectural and ecological thinking with inclusive social practices, enhanced by new digitally-enhanced urban imaginaries and new representational tools of mapping, modeling and design.

Cogitatio Press2017

Brussels ecosystems in space. Solving the paradox between non-spatial eco-system and design distance criterion

Elena Cogato Lanza

Some transdisciplinary ‘metropolitan laboratories’ created to improve the global transition by renewing concepts, analytical tools and project approaches have demonstrated a certain vivacity and capacity for experimentation. Metrolab in Brussels, for example, has joined the ‘Eco-Century Project’ programme launched by the Braillard Foundation in Geneva to develop a synergy and confrontation on the subject1; the interdisciplinary Habitat Research Centre of the EPFL and the Urban School of Lyon2 pursue scientific objectives of fundamental and general importance by cultivating a privileged relationship with the urban regions where they are based. All these initiatives share the urgency of a systemic understanding of urban phenomena and use the category of ‘metropolis’ less to designate a hierarchical role in the territory (from this point of view, the function of the ‘capital’ of Brussels is an exception in the face of Lyon, Geneva or the Alpine and Lake Geneva metropolis), but more to stress the various and transversal components and processes of the urban realm that are indissoluble from the present global socioenvironmental conditions. It is about the ‘urban of the Anthropocene era’, as the distinctive formula of the Urban School of Lyon expresses it so well.

UCL Bruxelles2020

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