How do we make sense of the Earth at a moment in which it is presented in crisis? In this talk, I engage the speculative project—as expounded through drawings, models, and material artifacts—as one possible medium to reassemble publics around representations of the Earth. The project here becomes a medium that critically synthesizes spatial knowledge across scales to speculate on how to live with the many forms of environmental externalities, including oil extraction, deep-sea mining, ocean acidification, air pollution, space debris, and a host of other social-ecological issues. The talk is in two acts. The first act explores media devices to exhibit the Earth — terrarium, aquarium, planetarium through a series of projects from Geostories: Another Architecture for the Environment. The second act is a screening of The Planet After Geoengineering, a graphic animation on speculative technologies that counteract the effects of anthropogenic climate change by deliberately intervening in Earth systems.
Rania Ghosn is Associate Professor at the MIT School of Architecture and Planning and founding partner with El Hadi Jazairy of the studio DESIGN EARTH. Her practice engages the speculative project as a medium to make public the climate crisis and the technological systems that underpin it. The work of DESIGN EARTH is in the New York Museum of Modern Art permanent collection and has been widely exhibited, at venues such as the Venice Biennale, the Bauhaus Museum in Dessau, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Sursock Museum in Beirut, the Times Museum in Guangzhou and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Ghosn is co-author of Geostories: Another Architecture for the Environment (3rd ed. 2022; 2018), The Planet After Geoengineering (2021), and Geographies of Trash (2015). She is founding member of the journal New Geographies and editor-in-chief of its issue titled Landscapes of Energy (2010). Ghosn holds a Bachelor of Architecture from American University of Beirut (2000), a Master of Geography from University College London (2003), and a Doctor of Design from the Harvard Graduate School of Design (2010). She is recipient of the United States Artist Fellowship (2022), the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers (2016), and ACSA Faculty Design Awards (2014, 2017) for outstanding work in environmental design fields as a critical endeavor.
Engaging Pluralism
When ideologies and cultures collide, new ways of working with and living in the world emerge. As a form of political philosophy, pluralism draws upon this dynamic condition, promoting the coexistence of multiple approaches and worldviews. Yet in the context of compounding crises and unchecked inequality, this is far from a neutral position: it becomes a commitment to struggle and discourse. Drawing from a broad-ranging group of speakers, Rice Architecture’s annual lecture series, Engaging Pluralism, explores how architects and designers can work with friction, contradiction, and multiplicity to effect broader social, cultural, and environmental change. It is an all-school platform for reflecting on the possibilities and challenges of designing for a pluralistic society.
All lectures are free and open to the public and, unless noted otherwise, will be held in person in Farish Gallery, MD Anderson Hall, with a livestream component. In the event that COVID-19 circumstances prohibit in-person lectures, the series will be held virtually via Zoom. Each lecture has been submitted for AIA CES approval.
This lecture series is made possible through the generous support of the Betty R. and George F. Pierce Jr., FAIA, Fund; the William B. Coleman Jr. Colloquium Fund for Architecture; the Wm. W. Caudill Lecture Series Fund; and Rice Design Alliance (RDA), the public programs and outreach arm of Rice Architecture, which includes the generous support of its members and RDA Underwriters: Harvey | Harvey-Cleary; Tellepsen Family; Big State Electric; Brochsteins; CED Houston; MAREK; Turner Construction; and Walter P. Moore. Additional support is provided by the Texas Commission on the Arts.