
ACSA/EAAE Teachers Conference
The ACSA/EAAE Teachers Conference will be held at Pratt Institute in Summer 2021. Not all 1.5°C global heating scenarios are created equal. From the current ecogenocide of the global south to the 2020 Gini Index of global inequality, the climate crisis is an urgent one of development, equity, and justice. The construction industry is responsible for 40% of global carbon emissions and architecture and other design professions have willingly, or unwillingly, sided with an uneven development that has consequences expanding from food insecurity and nutrient deficiency to imposed displacement due to collapsing ecosystems. Countries and communities that are least responsible are feeling the impact of the decisions made on the opposite side of the world ‐ a trend which will exacerbate in the future as new portions of our shared earth industrialize. As we move out of our current global health emergency and confront the next very real crisis of climate alteration, should architecture’s agenda be to rally forth in action, or can architecture construct a new type of agency in the processes of inaction? It could be argued that inaction in one field can allow for new actions to be taken in other fields and disciplines. The international lockdown, brought forth by our shared global pandemic, has allowed us to witness the effects of a pause on carbon emissions – how do we use this opportunity to not return to business as usual, but instead inform a new normal of climate order? As design educators, we must think critically about the role that the next generation of global architects will play in addressing the inequalities to which architecture as a profession contributes. Our considerations need to range across the atomization of all of our material acts ‐ at the scale of the detail, material specification, building form as well as the design of cities and regions. It is imperative that we as professional educators recognize our epoch of the anthropocene and act as agents on behalf of the globe and its citizens.