Fallow urban spaces and latent ecologies as framework for...

Fallow urban spaces and latent ecologies as framework for new infrastructure

Renata ValentePhD architect, researcher, professor of Environmental and Public Design at Second University of Naples, Italy

Thursday, April 11, 20133:30 - 4:30 PM 316B Wurster Hall

By fallow urban spaces we mean unused sites such as riverbanks, areas around and under urban high-ways, vacant lots, derelict lands, parts of the towns refused by citizens, neglected places, results from shrinking cities. Following the literal meaning of the word fallow, they are there waiting to be ready again for a new use, like a field plowed and left unseeded for a season or more. Apparently empty, they have inside themselves emergent ecologies ready to come out, to be studied, understood and revealed: special phenomena occurring just there. By researching on fallow spaces, we study ways to transform them into sustainable hybrid landscapes, defining specific characteristics.

Speaker:

Contact: Victoria Duong, iurd@berkeley.edu Website: http://iurd.berkeley.edu