In this webinar, Amanda Aman, AIA, LEED AP BD+C will present her 2018 Stewardson Keefe LeBrun Travel Grant research, Fragile Fields of the Arctic Circle Periphery. The perpetual global climate shift materializes within the Arctic Circle as a reaction to the pressures of petrochemical industrial output and unsustainable human practice. Arctic environments are among the first to experience the manifestations of this shift as the Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the globe. As a result, natural systems, wildlife migrations, and patterns of habitation will be severely altered, in addition to the dependence of indigenous people groups on these for cultural preservation and physical survival.
The architectural response plays a critical role in this shift through the lenses of resiliency and adaptability as architects will be tasked with generating novel typologies that intimately interface with fluctuating natural systems. The coupled invisibility of the permafrost edge and the stark shift of boreal forest to tundra serves as an index along the edge of the Arctic Circle for documenting the gradient of fragile systems, infrastructure, and architecture soon to experience change.
