Overcoming Carbon Form

Harvard GSD

This course studies how the adoption of fossil fuels has changed the spatial organization of human society, from new building typologies invented to manage an emerging working class to new urban archetypes designed to meet the demands of mechanized mobility and global consumption. From the steam engine onward, these architectural and urban configurations—what could be called carbon form—have enmeshed the cultural, economic, and political aspects of social life within an energy-intensive…