Liquid Planning
ARCH 505 | URP 515 | WINTER 2015 Flow Studies, Catherine Truong Liquid Planning 2013
TAUBMAN COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE + URBAN PLANNING - THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
COURSE OVERVIEW
The Great Lakes Region is among the most heavily regimented territories of water infrastructure in the world. The origins and history of this transformation reveal over a century of evolving, international geo-political agendas aimed at connecting the region to global flows of commerce. Such efforts have produced a watery engine of production and trade that sustains some 34-million inhabitants and generates billions of dollars in incomes and revenues annually in both Canada and the United States. Yet, such success comes with negative consequences that have led to notable conditions of environmental decline throughout the Great Lakes. In terms of water quality, point source pollution has historically been a particularly damaging challenge. Across several decades, higher levels of pollutants in urban rivers were accepted as a necessary externality of progress in the region. This abruptly changed when in July of 1969, the cover of Time Magazine depicted an image of the Cuyahoga River burning and an emblazoned battle to save a ship caught in a sea of flames and black smoke. The article was met with a level of national, public outcry that ultimately triggered responses at local and federal levels, therein laying the groundwork for the 1972 Clean Water Act. While the Cuyahoga River no longer catches fire, Lake Erie launched to national media attention in August of 2014 when a toxic algae bloom caused a water ban for nearly half a million people in Toledo, Ohio. We find ourselves now at a second tipping point of perception and awareness that is making way for a new paradigm of water management and resource conservation throughout the Basin to take hold. Liquid Planning, Winter 2015, will collaborate with LAND Studio, a non-profit organization based in Cleveland, Ohio. Through this partnership, the class will participate in stormwater research that advances design strategies aimed to couple environmental stewardship with the development of public spaces. The class will integrate readings, invited guest lectures, discussions, design exercises and software tutorials (ArcGIS and Rhino) and a site visit to Cleveland across three assignments. Lectures will include several invited specialists considering watershed resource planning and management from other disciplinary points of view. Tutorials will teach how to use software critically, thereby enabling an innovative approach to input, analysis and output of data through the specific parameters of research questions. Students will be expected to produce cartographies, visual representations, laser cut models, and succinct texts to convey information associated with complex problems with precision and clarity to a wider audience. All four assignments will be organized as group work (in multidisciplinary teams of 2-4) thereby facilitating collaboration and prioritizing approaches and methods that rely on multiple expertise at all stages of design.
COURSE INSTRUCTORS
Jen Maigret, Assistant Professor of Architecture (maigretj@umich.edu) Maria Arquero de Alarcon, Assistant Professor of Architecture + Urban Planning (marquero@umich.edu)
COURSE INFORMATION
Class time: Friday (9 am - 12 pm) Duderstadt Center Windows Training Room 1 Office Hours: Monday, 11 am - 12 pm, and Tuesday 11 am - 12 pm, previous appointment. 1