This Is Not a Design Project : A Work of New York 2140 Architectural Fanfiction
department or school: Applied Science, Faculty of
department or school: Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Huser, Emily
issued: 2021-12-24T18:41:15Z
issued: 2021-12
description: The thesis imagines a speculative narrative set in the spaces of Kim Stanley Robinson’s science fiction novel New York 2140 to explore architecture’s relationship with capitalist urbanization. The novel caricatures a future New York beset by disastrous impacts of climate change and a housing crisis precipitated by financial speculation. The thesis speculates on architects’ role in this future society. While architecture plays a role in the negative social impacts resulting from capital accumulation through the built environment, buildings in and of themselves lack agency. The thesis questions the architectural discipline’s focus on design objects, as opposed to alternative modes of practice, as solutions to the negative impacts of capitalist urbanization.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/80509
note: This Is Not a Design Project A Work of New York 2140 Architectural Fanfiction Emily Huser Bachelor of Architectural Science British Columbia Institute of Technology, 2017 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture in The Faculty of Graduate Studies, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Architecture Program Committee: Dr. Sara Stevens (Chair) John Bass Jennifer Cutbill University of British Columbia © December 2021 ii Abstract The thesis imagines a speculative narrative set in the spaces of Kim Stanley Robinson’s science fiction novel New York 2140 to explore architecture’s relationship with capitalist urbanization. The novel caricatures a future New York beset by disastrous impacts of climate change and a housing crisis precipitated by financial speculation. The thesis speculates on architects’ role in this future society. While architecture plays a role in the negative social impacts resulting from capital accumulation through the built environment, buildings in and of themselves lack agency. The thesis questions the architectural discipline’s focus on design objects, as opposed to alternative modes of practice, as solutions to the negative impacts of capitalist urbanization. iii This thesis was undertaken on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people. iv Table of Contents Front Matter Abstract ii List of Figures v Acknowledgments viii Part One: Field of Inquiry 1 Introduction 3 Context Urbanization 4 Architectural Culture 7 Architectural Practice 13 Method Overview 19 Precedents 22 Part Two: The New York 2140 Architectural Fanfiction 35 End Matter Bibliography 131 v List of Figures Figure 1. Ville Contemporaine. Jeanneret, Pierre & Le Corbusier. 1922. 10 Figure 2. Big U. Bjarke Ingels Group. 2014. 12 Figure 3. Atlas of Another America. Keith Krumweide. 2016. 24 Figure 4. Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture. Rem Koolhaas et al. 1972. 26 Figure 5. Supersurfa…
has type: Graduating Project
spatial: New York (NY)
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0406126
language: eng
peer review status: Unreviewed
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
is part of: University of British Columbia. ARCH 549
subject: Architectural practice
subject: Capitalist urbanization
subject: Science fiction
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/80509