5KL: Land

Friday, September 26, 2014, 2 - 6pm

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Photo by Folkert Gorter | used under CC BY 3.0, desaturated from original

Photo by Folkert Gorter | used under CC BY 3.0, desaturated from original

This symposium is co-sponsored by the Architectural League of New York and The Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design.

The Five Thousand Pound Life: Land addresses the need to consider settlement patterns and competing land uses in new ways given the reality of climate change.  The value assigned to various forms of land use, and various attitudes towards land as a resource, must be understood in terms of ecological services and impacts, rather than narrowly-defined economic imperatives. In sessions on “Nature and the City,” “Spatial Logistics,” “Density,” and "Land, Climate, and Culture," speakers will consider American approaches to development, attitudes toward nature, and whether the current dominant narrative of the environmental superiority of concentrated high density development might be challenged by a counter-narrative of lower density land-use that takes advantage of distributed energy production and localized treatment of waste. Ultimately, The Five Thousand Pound Life: Land will ask what the desirable and politically achievable mix of these narratives could be.

The Architectural League launched The Five Thousand Pound Life—an initiative of public events, digital releases, and a major design study—in September 2013 to address the intertwined challenges of reimagining the American way of life to address climate change and to rebuild a robust economic structure that offers viable livelihoods across the income spectrum. The League brings the perspective of the design professions to these issues, as its contribution to what must be a broad collective effort spanning geographies, generations, occupations, disciplines, and ideologies.

Opening Remarks
Kevin Bone, Director, The Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design
Rosalie Genevro, Executive Director, The Architectural League of New York
 
A Conversation on Nature and the City
Eric Sanderson & Ted Steinberg
Moderated by Rosalie Genevro
 
Spatial Logistics
Alex Klatskin
Rob Holmes
Jesse LeCavalier
Moderated by Coral Davenport
 
Density
Emily Talen
Charles Waldheim
Albert Pope
Moderated by Vishaan Chakrabarti
 
A Conversation on Land, Climate, and Culture
Rebecca Solnit
Cassim Shepard
 

FREE TO CURRENT COOPER UNION STUDENTS/FACULTY/STAFF AND ARCHITECTURAL LEAGUE MEMBERS.

For additional ticketing info please go here.

Located in The Great Hall, in the Foundation Building, 7 East 7th Street, between Third and Fourth Avenues

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.