John Cook, Ben Pollock, + Laura Nica, with Design Studio 18
University of Westminster, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment
presented by
AHO Institute of Urbanism and Landscape

This visit from University of Westminster will provide insight into three design-driven, conceptually and methodologically interlinked investigations in how changing climates affect and re-ground the objects and processes of urbanization.

Monsoon Assemblages – a multi-year, ERC-funded interdisciplinary research project (Grant No. 679873) led by Prof. Lindsay Bremner, which proposes monsoon systems as dynamic frameworks for rapid and complex urban growth in three of South Asia’s largest cities: Chennai, Dhaka, and Yangon.

4D Island – a data-driven, citizen-sourced system for mapping climate change risks across the Maldives archipelago, aiming to produce a toolkit of suggestive design moves, developed by Ben Pollock and Oscar McDonald.

DS18 Air, Architecture, + Other Climates – the advanced design studio at University of Westminster, which in the fall 2019 investigates the changing regimes of Norway’s climatic setting and atmospheric systems, and the conditions for urban development, ecosystemic functionality, infrastructure, and agriculture. As the boundary of the polar region defined as the Arctic Circle, the global circulatory systems of the Ferrel and Polar air cells, and the upper tropospheric westerly air flow known as the Polar Jet Stream begin to shift, the studio asks: what architectures will emerge and what is their role amongst these transitions? To offer resistance, adaptation, measurement, or control?