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ARCH 793AB: Practice Make Performance

Instructor: Lisa Little

Reconstructing Carbon Capital

The 20th Century oil-fueled global economy enabled faith in infinite growth. Climate disasters, conflict, and increased extraction costs pose an existential threat to the carbon-based way of life. Contemporary visions of dystopia imagine the end of this carbon age is the end of progress itself. The inevitable sunset of the carbon age will overturn human relationships with space and speed. I believe the physical remnants of the carbon age can be repurposed to serve the changing needs of future civilizations.

I am designing a system to deconstruct obsolete transportation architecture into mass-customizable architectural components. Although I can only speculate on future programs and forms, the post-carbon era will undoubtedly be defined by a surplus of defunct machines. I believe future architects will quarry these boneyards to create intentional, even beautiful, structures for human habitation.