THE HANS AND ROGER STRAUCH SYMPOSIUM ON SUSTAINABLE DESIGN 2013

DESIGN FOR BIODIVERSITY
Architectural Responses to Urban Ecology

February 1 - 2, 2013
Abby and Howard Milstein Auditorium, Milstein Hall
Department of Architecture, Cornell University

More details at aap.cornell.edu/arch/events

Since its emergence in the 1970s, the field of Urban Ecology has investigated relations between living organisms and their urban environments, and has primarily addressed the city at the scale of urban planning. Within this framework, architecture, at the building scale, has thus far not been extensively tackled.  How might architecture actively support multi-species habitats?  Can these habitats help us replace existing, fossil fuel dependent, mechanistic systems with low impact, ecologically integrated systems that leverage natural sources?  How does reimagining the city in this way change how we think about urban form and phenomenology?  And finally, what are the appropriate models to study?  This year’s Strauch Symposium will address these questions by focusing on the extended threshold between building and environment.  In all ecosystems, such zones are the locus of dynamic change driven by evolutionary pressures that emerge at the boundaries of established hierarchies
  of energy and material transformation.  Such places are, by definition, the ideal location for architectural intervention. 

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Friday, February 1, 5:00pm
KEYNOTE LECTURE
Michael Wells
Biodiversity By Design
“Biodiverse Urban Design in Theory and Practice”

Saturday, February 2, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
SESSION 1
The Bigger Picture: Aims and Actions in Urban Ecology

Michael Hensel - Oslo School of Architecture and Design
Kevin Pratt - Cornell University Department of Architecture
Marianne Krasny - Cornell University Civic Ecology Lab

SESSION 2
Boundary Conditions: The Building Envelope as Extended Threshold

Jeffrey Turko - NEKTON Studio
Philip Beesley - Philip Beesley Architect Inc.
Mitchell Joachim + Maria Aiolova - TerreformONE

SESSION 3
Multi-scalar Architectures: Design Ecologies from Micro to Macro

Jenny Sabin + Shu Yang - Cornell University Department of Architecture; University of
Pennsylvania Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Birger Sevaldson + Søren Sørensen - Oslo School of Architecture and Design
Alexander Felsen - Yale University Urban Ecology and Design Lab

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Organizers:
Jenny Sabin - Department of Architecture, Cornell University
Kevin Pratt - Department of Architecture, Cornell University
Michael Hensel - Oslo School of Architecture and Design

This event is organized by the Department of Architecture, Cornell University and the Research Center for Architecture and Tectonics, Oslo School of Architecture and Design. Funding is provided by a gift to Cornell’s Department of Architecture by Roger and Hans Strauch.