AHO WORKS RESEARCH 2012
Impact, Dissemination and Events
SUSTAINING SUSTAINABILITY – ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES
IN URBAN ECOLOGY AND ARCHITECTURE
RCAT/CORNELL UNIVERSITY SYMPOSIUM, ITHACA, NY, 3 FEBRUARY 2012
ORGANIZERS:
Mark Cruvelier, Michael U. Hensel
PARTICIPATING SPEAKERS:
Michael U. Hensel, David Zeigler, John Marzluff, Birger
Sevaldson, Richard Bonser, Dana Cupkova, Kevin Pratt, Jonas Lundberg, Cristian Diaz
Moreno, Efren Garcia Grinda, Marco Poletto
Cornell University’s Department of Architecture and AHO’s Research Centre for
Architecture and Tectonics collaborated on organizing two international symposia
focusing on the relationship between architecture and ecology. The accelerating
transformation of the natural environment by humans suggests that the built en-
vironment is increasingly becoming the context for ecosystems. It may no longer
be possible to consider the built environment as merely asserting negative impact
on the natural environment; instead, built and natural environments need to be
equally considered as habitats that are designed to provide for biodiversity. It is
therefore necessary to shift architectural design toward a non-anthropocentric
model that favors the interaction between species and the built environment.
On an urban scale, such efforts have taken shape in the interdisciplinary field
of urban ecology, yet on a building scale related approaches are sparse and
in their infancy. The symposium focused therefore on the question as to how
architecture can be developed to set out and instrumentalize specifically related
knowledge, concepts, and working methods.
FEBRUARY
