In its third and final edition, the CCA-WRI Research Fellowship Program Above/Below/Between: Light on a Damaged Planet continues to seek to understand architecture’s varied relationships to the changing material constitution of the light spectrum. The recognition of the manifold meanings and architectural mediations of light, which are becoming only more salient in our era of ecological crises, is common to both the Canadian Centre for Architecture and the Window Research Institute. In 2024 we will welcome three CCA-WRI Fellows for periods of research of up to three months, with Fellows turning their attention to the third element in the diffusion of light across our solar societies: between, and the everyday conditions that permeate how light shapes and is shaped by the built environment.
The “between” names a specific set of phenomena that become apparent between the atmosphere and land, ones that reflect the Earth’s condition as a solar-dependent environment. These include, for example, the increasing levels of air pollution across the globe, and how this is becoming a major concern for everyday human activities in towns and cities. The “between” contains the chemical aftereffects of carbon combustion, industrial production, and forest fires. Air pollution thus becomes a phenomenon that generates a range of mitigation practices, from investments in public transit to green industrial technologies more broadly.
