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Gallery: Michael Lundgren, Aaron Rothman & Josh Wallaert

If There Be Such Space

Photographers Michael Lundgren and Aaron Rothman share an interest in the perception and representation of natural landscapes, and they have ventured together and separately to some of the same places in the American Southwest. Yet their voices are clearly distinct. This slideshow, drawn from a collaborative exhibition at the University of Virginia, explores the convergence and divergence of two artists working independently to measure the space between the self and world.

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Essay: Austin Troy

Thirsty City

The urbanization of the American West is the result of diverse factors, including global industries, transport infrastructure and sunny weather. But in this arid region one factor above all has empowered the growth of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tucson — the importation of water. Environmental scientist Austin Troy assesses the massive infrastructure needed to move water long distances — and the massive quantities of energy that make it possible to take a shower in Southern California.

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Interview: Ila Berman & Mona El Khafif

Design, Research, Impact: URBANlab at CCA

As part of our occasional series on university design centers, we are pleased to profile URBANlab at the California College of the Arts. Led by CCA faculty members Ila Berman and Mona El Khafif, URBANlab works to build frameworks for collaboration on the social and environmental challenges confronting cities in the Bay Area and beyond. The goal, says Berman, is "project-based design research that furthers academic knowledge and has a direct effect on the realities it investigates."

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Essay: Will Holman

Lessons from the Front Lines of Social Design

Will Holman has studied and worked at Arcosanti, Rural Studio and YouthBuild. He describes the experiences as hard to quantify. "I’ve dug septic lines, chain-sawed tornado debris, shoveled gravel... I’ve code-checked drawings, drafted into the night, surveyed sites. But the real results are intangible — relationships, experiences, memories, lessons learned." Yet Holman thinks the profession has paid little attention to how architects might "put together a career in social design."

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Gallery: Dave Jordano & Aaron Rothman

Detroit Re-Photography

In the early 1970s photographer Dave Jordano documented a series of buildings and places in his native Detroit; in 2010 he returned to the same spots. The result is the Detroit Rephotography Survey, selections of which we are pleased to present here. As our photo editor Aaron Rothman notes, Jordano's then-and-now images "implicate us in the changes they depict," and work as a kind of antidote to the cool aestheticism of ruin porn.

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Essay: Jerry Herron

The Forgetting Machine: Notes Toward a History of Detroit

"What does it add up to, all this abandonment of lives and buildings, neighborhoods and property? It doesn’t seem to add up to anything... This city is never coming back; whatever happens next will be without precedent because the context of city no longer applies in this place where history has finally run out." Here Jerry Herron reflects on Detroit, tracking the excesses of ruin porn, the decline of Hudson's, and the hopefulness of a retrofitted carpark in a gutted theater.

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Essay: Michael P. Branch

The Hills Are Alive

How do you solve a problem like Maria? Environmental writer Michael Branch describes a day hike in the Great Basin near his Nevada home, where his young daughters reenact the opening scene of The Sound of Music. Along the way he reflects not only on the difference between the brown hills of the arid West and the green Alpine meadows of the famous movie (which he despises) but also on how deeply the "stylized, controlled and color-corrected representations" of nature in photography and film have "conditioned our landscape aesthetics."

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Gallery: Kate Bernheimer, Andrew Bernheimer & Guy Nordenson and Associates

House on Chicken Feet, Part 3

Our holiday week of architectural fairy tales concludes here, with Guy Nordenson and Associates re-envisioning — and re-engineering — the tower in "Rapunzel." This will be Places' last post of 2011 as well. Happy New Year!

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Gallery: Kate Bernheimer, Andrew Bernheimer & Leven Betts with Bret Quagliara

House on Chicken Feet, Part 2

Continuing our winter holiday week of architectural fairy tales, on the theme of magical houses, we present the second installment, in which New York architects David Leven and Stella Betts reimagine "Jack and the Beanstalk."

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Featured Content: Water and Design

Anuradha Mathur
Visualizing Landscapes

Kristi Dykema Cheramie
The Scale of Nature

Timothy Beatley
Blue Urbanism

Call for Entries: Places Editors

2012 EDRA Great Places Awards

The Environmental Design Research Association is accepting submissions for the 14th Annual Great Places Awards. Entries must be received by January 27, 2012.

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Call for Articles: Places Editors

Public and Private

Places Journal seeks articles that explore the complex dynamic of public and private in contemporary politics and culture, and how this dynamic influences the design and production of buildings, landscapes and cities.

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Partner News: Places Editors

Recent Books from Partner Schools

A round-up of selected books on architecture, urban planning and design by faculty in our partner school network.

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Partner News: University of Michigan

Curating Race Curating Space Symposium November 12

The symposium aims to solidify the role theory, literary imagination and visual culture can play in architectural production. It will be followed by a launch party for CriticalProductive, a new biannual peer-reviewed academic journal.

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Partner News: University of Minnesota

Mapping Spectral Traces Symposium Planned for October 2012

An international network of researchers and creative practitioners work with and in traumatized communities and contested lands to map unacknowledged histories.

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Partner News: Georgia Tech

New Interactive Product Design Laboratory at Georgia Tech

Students will design, prototype and test “intelligent” products and systems at interactive workstations. The public is invited to tour the new facilities at an open house on Friday, October 28.

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Partner News: University of Toronto

Zerofootprint Re-Skinning Awards 2011 Winners and Finalists

The awards competition, organized this year by Zerofootprint and the Daniels Faculty at the University of Toronto, honors green building projects from around the world and showcases newly evolving re-skinning design technologies.

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Partner News: MIT

MIT Architecture Announces Fall Lectures

Events include a symposium on October 7, "Considering Cities: Time, Size, Environment," as well as lectures by international architects and scholars throughout the fall.

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Building Community Across the Transect
Spring 2006

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Caring for Places: Imagining Difference

Recommended Book

Working the Line
David Taylor, Hannah Freiser & Luis Alberto Urrea
A beautifully produced volume of photographs by David Taylor focused on the social and physical complexities of the U.S.-Mexican border. With texts in English and Spanish by Hannah Freiser and Luis Alberto Urrea. [NL]
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