This course will examine the relationship between architecture and ecology - since 1970, the year of the first Earth Day. During the last thirty-plus years ecology has become an inescapable political issue and an awkward guest in architectural theory. Alarm over air and water pollution, global warming and insane quantities of waste have inspired a plethora of texts on 'environmentalism' and a mandate for 'sustainability' and 'ecological architecture.' But what do these terms mean, and where did they come from? How do architects apply them and how are they accounted for? Can an incisive cross-disciplinary investigation of these politically-charged terms lead to new ideas and strategies for architectural design?

In a review of a dozen books published between 1996-2002 on sustainable architecture, historian Richard Ingersoll reaches the conclusion that in order to 'dismantle the burden of determinism' associated with the ecological design movement, the emergence of a 'dialectical ecologist' seems more valuable to the ecology movement today than all its good intentions or innovations. The determinism described here refers the instrumental operationalism that dominates the processes and products of much contemporary eco-building around the world today. Ingersoll drives the point home that decoupling the urban project from the innovative ecological design one [double-skins, smart walls, transfer technologies, etc.] is futile. And yet buildings worldwide are responsible for about 40% of CO2 emissions, the US being the largest culprit by far. It is in this dialectic space between the urban project and the ecological one that this studio will be situated and where 'complexity' will be nurtured. Housing will serve as the venue for critically examining an array of 'ecology questions' circulating in contemporary ecocriticism discourse today. The site for the project is a multi-block context along the Belt Line Atlanta Project.

The purpose of this course is to guide students towards understandings about the role of ecological technologies in architecture. The course will lay the groundwork for an emerging paradigm that challenges our understanding of building energy consumption and its contribution to global environmental quality. The course offers a general exposure to questions pertaining to the ecological production of building and considers the meaning and implications of reorienting the role of the architect from master designer to facilitator of ecological initiatives in the built environment. Architectural projects are presented and studied in view of both environmental and intellectual propositions, as well as in view of technical requirements. The relation between theoretical and practical concerns is seen as central to an understanding of ecological technology as an emerging, culturally determined and determining discipline