M03 // Ecological Thinking

Key Readings for a New Climatic Regime

MAEBB program

1/ CONTEXT
The last few decades have confirmed the evidence of a striking change of paradigms in the
definition of our spaces of relation, interaction and sociability. These transformations are
intimately associated with the current and accelerated growth of the technological capacity to
process information, increase communication and multiply differential definitions of our
environment(s).
This paradigm shift reverberates with a new ecological condition inaugurating a climatic regime
that demands specific investigation. The term “investigation” comes from the Latin investigare,
which derives from vestigium, meaning fingerprint. On the one hand, to investigate is equivalent
to "going in pursuit of the fingerprint of something", that is to say, "to go after the track of
something" in order to discover it. On the other hand, to investigate also means to explore an
uncertain epistemological domain in order to increase the field of knowledge on a certain matter.
This seminar will critically approach the notion of “Ecology” through 7 sessions that combine
architectural projects and philosophical and sociological readings. The aim of this
transdisciplinary approach is to understand the practice of architecture as a cartographical
endeavour in which forces coming from different disciplines meet and collide, particularly under
the notion of “Ecology”.

2/ OBJECTIVES
1. To ramify the notion of Ecology according to the various branches provided by
contemporaneous thinking while understanding its architectural conjugations.
2. Identify an intellectual debate and build a position in relation to it.
3. Practice the art of the debate in a community with different positions.
4. Expose this position with clarity and precision.
5. Synthesize the lessons learned within ecological texts and debate with case studies
3/ FACULTY

Jordi Vivaldi is a writer, philosopher and architectural theorist based in Vienna.

PhD Architect (IOUD, Austria) and PhD Philosopher cand. (EGS, Switzerland), Jordi is the
author of the forthcoming book In-Limit. Space, Agency and a Xenological Tale (Actar
Publishers, 2021). His areas of research include 20th and 21st century’s theory of experimental
architecture, art and technology, as well as various forms of Speculative Realism and New
Materialism. His current field of investigation orbits around the notion of “limit” together with
associated terms such as “finitude”, “determination” and “reduction”, both in its philosophical
and architectural registers.

Jordi’s philosophical work applies Eugenio Trias’ notion of limit into Graham Harman’s
Object-Oriented Philosophy in order to construct a metaphysical theory of limits that is both
com-pressive and ex-pressive. From an architectural perspective, Jordi’s research focuses on
articulating the concept of limit as a contemporaneous form of habitational space associated
with the xenological condition.

Jordi is currently working as theory faculty and researcher in several international universities
such as IaaC in Barcelona, Bartlett in London, IOUD in Innsbruck and PROPUR in Buenos
Aires. Besides his curatorial tasks as editor in chief of the architectural magazine IaaC Bits, his
work has crystallized in several articles, essays and lectures. Jordi is also the co-author of the
book The Threefold Logic of Advanced Architecture (Barcelona: Actar Publishers, 2020).

www.jordivivaldi.com
04/ DELIVERABLES

Students will form groups of 2, and select a philosophical work/architectural concept:

1. Dark Ecology, Timothy Morton // Biocities Master Plan. Ecological cities, including
planning and materials
2. Down to Earth, Bruno Latour // Urban forestry big scale urban and periurban
3. Reversing the new global Monasticism, Emanuele Coccia // Timber Buildings. Mostly
from Europe
4. The Ecology of Wisdom, Arne Naess // Metabolic Biocities: projects with solar
regeneration, bioenergy plants etc
5. Gaia, James Lovelock // River cleaning, and water channels recovery
6. The 3 Ecologies, Felix Guattari // Food production in agriculture landscape and urban
food
7. General Ecology, Erich Horl // Trash fills renaturalization, quarry recovery and big
matter renewals
8. Grey Ecology, Paul Virilio // Pocket urban renewal in parks, roofs, façades and others
9. The Limits Of Growth, Meadows et al. // BioCircular design products

By the end of the course, each group must create a compendium of text and images including:

1. 500-1000 words text, Extended Abstract

- This will be not simply a summary of the reading you have done, but also your
critical position on the arguments made and how they relate to your architectural
topic.

2. 5 - 10 Representative images
- These images can be created or found, but must relate to/explain your extended
abstract. Examples include artwork, photographs, graphs or scientific charts
illustrating certain points, ect.

3. Catalogue of 20 case studies

- Each pair must research and curate a selection of 20 case studies within the
given architectural category. These cases will be relevant to the theoretical
analysis. For each case study, you must prepare the following.
- General Description
- Map Location
- Plan, Section, Axo
- Operative Diagrams
- Materiality
- Selected Images

*A template with graphic standards will be provided to you, please ensure that you format your work
accordingly so we have a cohesive booklet*
Exercise
The exercise consists in building transdisciplinary associations between an architectural
proposal and a contemporary philosophical or sociological book that problematize the notion of
“Ecology”. The final aim of the exercise is to be able to construct and defend an informed and
argumentative position in relation to that term.

Students are requested to submit all the material on the IAAC Gdrive and a Blog post need to
be curated on iaacblog.net for each project (see “IAAC | Publication Guidelines” within a
maximum of 1 week after the end of the Seminar.

Grading System

• 0 - 4.9 Fail (submission of a supplementary work by May)

• 5.0 -6.9 Pass
• 7.0 - 8.9 Good
• 9.0 - 10 Excellent/Distinction.

Evaluation, Assessment, and Final Grade

Students will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

- Attendance and participation - 15 %*
- Blog posts and Submissions 20 %*
- Academic performance - 65%
Articulated into:
- Demonstration of imaginative and critical thinking skills.
- Clarity, precision of argument, creativity and depth.
- Capacity to situate and critically contextualize its reading
- Ability to communicate intentions verbally and graphically.
- Understanding of cultural, architectural, technical, and historical ramifications of
projects.
- Conscientious effort over the course of the entire quarter.
- Completion of all requirements in a timely manner.
- Participation in individual and group reviews.

*Attendance and completion of submissions are mandatory, students failing to submit or

not being present to at least 75% of the classes, without justification included in IAAC
Terms & Conditions, will fail

Students who submit after the deadlines defined by the faculty and coordination will be subject
to penalty and the grade will be automatically lowered of 0.3 point for every day of delay.
Incomplete submission is considered as missing submission.
Other References / Bibliography
- Bruno Latour, Down to Earth (2017)
- Gilles Clement, The Planetary Garden (2015)
- Williams & Srnicek, Inventing the Future (2016)
- Timothy Morton, Being Ecological (2018)
- Donna Haraway, When Species Meet (2015)
- Luis Fernández Galiano, Fire and Memory (1991)
- Benjamin Bratton, Terraforming (2019)
- The Transparency Society, Byung Chul Han (2016)
- Zygmunt Bauman, Retrotopia (2017)
- Jeremy Rifkin, The Zero Marginal Cost Society (2014)
- Christophe Bonneuil, The Shock of the Anthropocene (2016)
- Peter Frase, Four Futures (2019)
- Byung Chul-Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power
(2016)
- Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (2009)
- Bruno Latour, Facing Gaia: Eight lectures on the new climatic regime (2017)

Credits: IaaC TAkCours, 2018