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5373: ENERGETICS OF URBANIZATIONURBAN THEORY LAB PRACTICUM

SPRING 2018 COLLOQUIUMHARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF DESIGNMAY 8, 2018

USER’S WARNING:“Not for the faint of heart or overextended”

Towards a study of the energetics of urbanization

Starting points: critique of ideology

Proliferating debates on ‘sustainable’ and ‘green’ urbanism—in social science and design

The need for critical deconstructions of dominant neoliberal and technoscientific ideologies that block systemic change

The need for alternative modes of analysis that illuminate the systemic sources and uneven (social and spatial) effects of ecological injustices

Beyond fuel-centric studies of energetics Beyond city-centric studies of urbanization

Beyond fuel-centric studies of energetics Beyond city-centric studies of urbanization

Energy≠Fuel

ALL ENERGY IS BY DEFINITIONRENEWABLE.

(avoid this tautology)

You can only transform energy and its dissipative structure.

ENERGETICS IS THE SPORT OF DIFFERENT QUANTITIES OF DIFFERENT QUALITIES OF

ENERGY

Work on the correct order of magnitude.

WHAT IS YOUR SYSTEM BOUNDARY?AND WHY?

Buildings & Cities are (always and only)

open systems.

• KM_diagram1_wlandscape.jpg

Energy dissipatesin open systems.

Emergy

Avoids isolated system thinking

Emergy is

-Spatial

Emergy is

-Spatial -Temporal

Emergy is

-Spatial -Temporal

Convergence

Emergy is

-Spatial -Temporal

Concentration -matter-energy

Emergy is

-Spatial -Temporal

Concentration -matter-energy

Convergence

Emergy

In the open systems that are the basis of life, urbanization, and architecture

Emergy is

-Spatial -Temporal

Concentration -matter-energy

Convergence

Feedback

Beyond fuel-centric studies of energetics Beyond city-centric studies of urbanization

LSE / Deutsche Bank research project / conference series

‘Urban age’

50% world urban population threshold

Rural

Urban

U = Pc / PtU = urbanization

Pc = population of citiesPt = total population

Provocation

Perhaps the city is not a settlement type or a spatial form—but one element in a broader, uneven process of urbanization (city vs. urban)

Provocation

Perhaps urban restructuring is not simply a mutation of city space but a multiscalar process of ‘implosion’ and ‘explosion’ that encompasses diverse territories, landscapes and ecologies

Concentrated urbanizationthe moment of implosion:

node, agglomeration, metropolis, region

Extended urbanizationthe moment of explosion:

operational landscapes that support and result from agglomeration.

INTENSITYof land use

CONNECTIVITYinfrastructures

METABOLISMof socio-environmental relations

H I N T E R L A N D

ENCLOSUREINFRASTRUCTURALIZATION

INDUSTRIALIZATION

O P E R A T I O N A LL A N D S C A P E

Proposition

The specificity of contemporary planetary urbanization lies not in the generalization of “the” city to the world or in the “transition” to a majority-urban world.

Proposition

Rather, it consists in the increasing industrial operationalization of erstwhile hinterland zones (of agriculture, extraction, logistics, waste management) to support the relentless metabolism of capital, as spatialized in the global metropolitan network.

Proposition

Questions of energetics (and related issues of sustainability) require us to embed “cities” and metropolitan regions within the broader, increasingly planetary webs of life and metabolic transformations in which they are embedded and to which they actively contribute (metabolic rifts and shifts)

Towards a study of the energetics of urbanization:key concepts

Maximize Power & Production of Entropy

Feedback

Dissipative structures

Concentrated / extended urbanization

Implosions-explosions of the capitalist urban fabric

Metabolic rift; ecological load displacement

Towards a study of the energetics of urbanization:some key questions

How are energetic processes materialized in the multiscalar, unevenly woven infrastructures of the capitalist urban fabric?

In what ways do capitalist forms of urbanization intensify the dissipation of entropy, and with what consequences?

How do the infrastructures of capitalist urbanization mediate and exacerbate capital’s metabolic rifts, and with what consequences?

How does the (energetic) study of extended urbanization transform our understanding of the historical geographies of capital’s metabolic ‘rifts’?

In what ways might exploration of such questions reframe our understanding of ‘fossil capital’ and associated energetic and urban dynamics?

In what ways might exploration of such questions reframe contemporary debates on postcarbon energy ‘transitions’?

Towards a study of the energetics of urbanization: work flow in our research practicum

WORKFLOW

7 WEEKS: READING SEMINAR ON ENERGETICS AND URBANIZATION

WORKFLOW

7 WEEKS: READING SEMINAR ON ENERGETICS AND URBANIZATION

-3000 WORD ANALYTICAL ESSAY

WORKFLOW

7 WEEKS: READING SEMINAR ON ENERGETICS AND URBANIZATION

-3000 WORD ANALYTICAL ESSAY

WORKFLOW

7 WEEKS: READING SEMINAR ON ENERGETICS AND URBANIZATION

-3000 WORD ANALYTICAL ESSAY

7 WEEKS: RESEARCH PROJECTS

WORKFLOW

7 WEEKS: READING SEMINAR ON ENERGETICS AND URBANIZATION

-3000 WORD ANALYTICAL ESSAY

7 WEEKS: RESEARCH PROJECTS

-”TECHNOFOSSIL”

WORKFLOW

7 WEEKS: READING SEMINAR ON ENERGETICS AND URBANIZATION

-3000 WORD ANALYTICAL ESSAY

7 WEEKS: RESEARCH PROJECTS

-”TECHNOFOSSIL”

-WEEKLY PROBES AND DRILLS

WORKFLOW

7 WEEKS: READING SEMINAR ON ENERGETICS AND URBANIZATION

-3000 WORD ANALYTICAL ESSAY

7 WEEKS: RESEARCH PROJECTS

-”TECHNOFOSSIL”

-WEEKLY PROBES AND DRILLS

-FINAL COLLOQUIUM

Distinguished Visitors

Hannah HollemanAssistant Professor of Sociology at Amherst College

Julie KlingerAssistant Professor of International Relations at Boston U.

Damian WhiteDean, School of Liberal Arts, RISD

SCHEDULE

9:00-9:30am: Welcome and Introduction by Neil Brenner and Kiel Moe

SCHEDULE

9:00-9:30am: Welcome and Introduction by Neil Brenner and Kiel Moe

(1) 9:30-10:50am: The unstable stability of soybean production under capitalism: analyzing the energetics of urbanization in Mato Grosso, Brazil, by Angeliki Giannisi and Anne Hudson

SCHEDULE

9:00-9:30am: Welcome and Introduction by Neil Brenner and Kiel Moe

(1) 9:30-10:50am: The unstable stability of soybean production under capitalism: analyzing the energetics of urbanization in Mato Grosso, Brazil, by Angeliki Giannisi and Anne Hudson

(2) 11am-12:20pm: How Bottled Water Intensifies the Metabolic Shift: A case study in the planetary urbanization of Fiji’s potable water through an energetic analysis, by Aurora Jensen and Pamela Cabrera

SCHEDULE

9:00-9:30am: Welcome and Introduction by Neil Brenner and Kiel Moe

(1) 9:30-10:50am: The unstable stability of soybean production under capitalism: analyzing the energetics of urbanization in Mato Grosso, Brazil, by Angeliki Giannisi and Anne Hudson

(2) 11am-12:20pm: How Bottled Water Intensifies the Metabolic Shift: A case study in the planetary urbanization of Fiji’s potable water through an energetic analysis, by Aurora Jensen and Pamela Cabrera

(3) 1:40-3:00pm: Dissipatory Circuits of Power: A Systems Ecology Approach to Analyzing the Energetics of Urbanization, by Bohan Zhang, Iain Gordon and Zlatan Sehovic

SCHEDULE

9:00-9:30am: Welcome and Introduction by Neil Brenner and Kiel Moe

(1) 9:30-10:50am: The unstable stability of soybean production under capitalism: analyzing the energetics of urbanization in Mato Grosso, Brazil, by Angeliki Giannisi and Anne Hudson

(2) 11am-12:20pm: How Bottled Water Intensifies the Metabolic Shift: A case study in the planetary urbanization of Fiji’s potable water through an energetic analysis, by Aurora Jensen and Pamela Cabrera

(3) 1:40-3:00pm: Dissipatory Circuits of Power: A Systems Ecology Approach to Analyzing the Energetics of Urbanization, by Bohan Zhang, Iain Gordon and Zlatan Sehovic

(4) 3:10-4:30pm: Green Infrastructure as the Respatialization of Planetary Carbonscapes, by Peter Osborne and Ryan Beitz

SCHEDULE

9:00-9:30am: Welcome and Introduction by Neil Brenner and Kiel Moe

(1) 9:30-10:50am: The unstable stability of soybean production under capitalism: analyzing the energetics of urbanization in Mato Grosso, Brazil, by Angeliki Giannisi and Anne Hudson

(2) 11am-12:20pm: How Bottled Water Intensifies the Metabolic Shift: A case study in the planetary urbanization of Fiji’s potable water through an energetic analysis, by Aurora Jensen and Pamela Cabrera

(3) 1:40-3:00pm: Dissipatory Circuits of Power: A Systems Ecology Approach to Analyzing the Energetics of Urbanization, by Bohan Zhang, Iain Gordon and Zlatan Sehovic

(4) 3:10-4:30pm: Green Infrastructure as the Respatialization of Planetary Carbonscapes, by Peter Osborne and Ryan Beitz

4:45-6:00pm Roundtable with Hannah Holleman, Julie Klinger, and Damian White.