The Polytechnic

Theory Forum 09 Ecology
University of Sheffield

This should be an interesting event, and is organised by the Sheffield students. I am giving a paper (abstract below) on the Saturday. The provisional programme is below:

Ning social network http://studentledtheoryforum09‐shefuni.ning.com/
tf09 ECOLOGY website http://architecture.dept.shef.ac.uk/theoryforum
Email tf09 ECOLOGY studentledtheoryforum09@sheffield.ac.uk

Provisional Programme [1 of 2] Friday 13th November 2009

09:10 Introduction by theory forum team and Agency

Talks
09:30 Irénée Scalbert >>> Learning from Vidal de la Blache
Irénée Scalbert taught at the AA for many years and he was a Visiting Design Critic at the GSD at Harvard. He
presently teaches at SAUL, in Ireland and lives in London.

09:50 Catharina Gabrielsson >>> Slack Space: the potential of the empty house.
Architect Ph D. Visiting Fellow (post‐doc) at the Cities Programme, LSE.

10:10 Kush Patel >>> Ecology as Lived: an inquiry into the role and meaning of lived‐space in
architectural design.
Kush Patel is currently on a Doctoral Program in Architecture, The Taubman College, University of Michigan.

10:30 ‐11:00 Discussion [led by 5th yr]

11:00 ‐ 11:20 BREAK

11:20 Steve Parnell >>> Aesthetics and Ethics: the Architectural Design
Sheffield School of Architecture, The University of Sheffield.

11:40 Nigel Dunnett >> pictorial ecology (tbc)
Department of Landscape, The University of Sheffield.

12:00 Ruxandra Berinde >>> Urban Homeostasis: counterbalancing urban disruptions
BABEŞ‐BOLYAI University, Romania.

12:20 ‐12:40 Discussion [Led by 5th yr MArch Students]

12:40 ‐ 13:40 LUNCH BREAK ‘Food fuddle’ organised by SUAS committee

13:45 ‐14:45 KEYNOTE Followed by discussion
InfraNet Lab >>> Frozen Cities, Liquid Networks: studies into arctic infrastructure, urbanism
and ecologies.
Lateral Architecture, Waterloo University and university of Toronto

Workshops
15:00 – 18:00 Introduction to workshop groups by 5th yrs
All workshops continue on Friday 14th November. Workshop times, coordinators and student groups to be
confirmed.

18:00 ‐ 21:00 Evening Social
• Food / drinks [organised by theory forum 09 ECOLOGY]
• Film Screenings times to be confirmed [coordinated by Julie Heron, 6th yr MArch Student]
• Live Music [to be confirmed]

Provisional Programme [2 of 2] Saturday 14th November 2009

Talks

09:30 KEYNOTE Followed by discussion
James Wines [to be confirmed] a selection of topics, Economy of Means; GREEN to POST‐GREEN ‐ communication
values on architecture and public space in the Age of Information Technology. S I T E, New York.

10:30 ‐ 11:00 BREAK

11:00 Lisa Tilder >>> Design Ecologies
Knowlton School of Architecture, The Ohio State University.

11:20 Rosalea Monacella >>> States of Change: transformative Shanghai
Program Director, Landscape Architecture. School of Architecture and Design RMIT University

11:40 Bing Chen >>> Education for Sustainable Architecture: qualified architects with insufficient
knowledge?
School of architecture, University of Sheffield

11:50 ‐ 12:20 Discussion [Led by 5th yr MArch Students]

12:20 ‐ 12:40 BREAK

12:40 Mick O’Kelly >>> Urban Space and Models of Sustainability
National College of art and Design Dublin

13:00 David Haley >>> Ecology and the Art of Sustainable Living
FRSA, Research Fellow, MIRIAD. MA Art as Environment Leader, Manchester Metropolitan University

13:20 Jon Goodbun >>> Critical Ecologies
University of Westminster / WAG Architecture

13:40 ‐ 14:10 Discussion [Led by 5th yr MArch Students]

14:10 ‐ 15:00 LUNCH BREAK ‘Food fuddle’ organised by SUAS committee
Workshops

15:00 Continuation of workshops with MArch 5th yr Student groups
Workshop times, coordinators and student groups to be confirmed

17:30 ‐ 18:30 Workshop Presentations from each student workshop group with feedback

18:00 – 20:00 Evening Social
• Refreshments
• Film Screenings times to be confirmed [coordinated by Julie Heron, 6th yr MArch Student]

Jon Goodbun

Defined at the metabolic interface of capitalist production and the planet in the nineteenth century, and derived from Greek Oikos meaning household, ecology can be interpreted as both the science of running a home, and the science of running an economy. Ecology shares with architecture this relation of dwelling and economics, and it also internalises many of the same complex relations and contradictions.
In fact, ecology shares much more than an etymological root with economy. There are a series of shared concepts - most notably growth, and circulation - and in important ways ecology is an economics of nature. Ecology as a discipline has complex roots, both arcadian and industrial, and it is this double lineage that has allowed the discipline to generate so many secondary discourses: human-, social-, mental-, deep-, and political ecology, to name some of the most important.
For Marx, it was necessary to introduce the ecological concept of metabolism into political economy, in order to grasp the general condition of human production within the broader web of life. Indeed, for Marx, the catastrophe of capitalist production is that it necessarily instantiates a metabolic rift with the planet’s ecosystems, which has since been theorised as the second contradiction of capitalism.
In this paper I will explore some of the relations contained within the concept of ecology as a paradigmatic systems theory, suspending it within a network of terms, in particular organic/technic, and nature/culture. I will suggest that architecture, as one of its core activities, has mediated the extended metabolic interface - social, spatial, economic and symbolic - between the external ‘natural’ world and the human ‘cultural’ world. Drawing upon a number of contemporary thinkers who have combined Marx’s thinking with more recent ecological thought (most notably David Harvey, Neil Smith, and Eric Swyngedouw,) I will suggest that more explicit relations between architecture and ecology - as both abstract concepts and concrete systems - is of critical importance today.