Disaster, Reconstruction, and Design
A+D Architecture and Design Museum, Los Angeles

June 28, 2008
10:30am - 5pm
Followed by a wine reception at 5pm

A+D Architecture and Design Museum Los Angeles
5900 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA, 90036

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
RSVP: 323.932.9393 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Following Sustainable Dialogues I, a symposium held in Bangkok in June 2007, and Sustainable Dialogues II, held in Panama in November 2007, Sustainable Dialogues III will bring together individuals from the former panels to meet various architects and planners in the United States. The goal is to bring together the most critical voices of individuals from Asia and Latin America, who have contributed to new dialogues between catastrophic events, ecology and the role of design in reconstruction efforts, with US planners and architects contending with local issues of similar nature. The 2007 symposiums played a central role in establishing an impressive network of people from around the globe. In this sense, disasters have provided a new opportunity for American architects and planners to meet and converse with people from various metropolitan locales to work together in developing new alternative urban planning strategies.

From the catastrophic impact of the tsunami in Southeast Asia and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, to the relinquishing of control of the Panama Canal by the U.S. to Panama, an incredible outpouring of international response from architects and environmentalist has resulted in a wide-range of alternative sustainable design strategies and proposals. These devastating global political and ecological upheavals emerging in the 21st century, that are resulting in massive reconfigurations of urban and natural territories, have given rise to new collaborative efforts by innovative architects and experts on sustainability, design, and planning from around the world that are working to develop new strategies relevant for the planning processes currently underway in New Orleans, Southeast Asia, Panama and many other places.

What role should sustainable architecture and urban design play in the on-going process of recovery, reconstruction and planning for the future? Given the range of catastrophic events currently unfolding around the globe, this symposium will consider the larger context of environmental changes in ecological patterns, ranging from tsunamis to hurricanes to the reunification of formerly politically divided urban territories. What impact do these processes have on the reorganization of the natural and man-made landscapes and the role the design community can play in initiating changes? The importance of collective thought and action, drawn from various regions of the globe, mark the emergence of new strategies for imagining the reconstruction of the contemporary city as an alternative and sustainable form of urbanism.

Symposium Organizers: Anthony Fontenot and Christian Ditlev Bruun
Symposium Sponsors: U.S. Department of State
Cooper Carry Architects
Pittsburgh Plate Glass
Opera Paints
Orangepiel

For information, contact A+D Museum Director, Tibbie Dunbar. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) 323.932.9393