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Join us for a special event featuring Vanessa Keith, a SIPA alumni and the founder of Studioteka. Vanessa will share insights from her multi-year project, 2100: A Dystopian Utopia, which designed the cities of 2100 given a business-as-usual emissions scenario.
"How can we change our way of life to be more in keeping with natural systems and processes? Climate change unquestionably represents the biggest challenge to the continued presence of humankind on this planet, not to mention the many other species currently at risk. Managing and attempting to limit the effects of global warming should be our biggest priority, marshalling our collective will, energies, and creativity toward the achievement of a common goal. Although the work is speculative, its premises are supported by the latest climate research and predictions, while the design solutions proposed build upon existing and emerging technologies. The future the book envisions is dystopian but the work is utopian, in that it sees the best in human potential rising to the occasion. 2100 serves not as a prediction, but rather as a warning and a call to action. It offers architecture’s response to climate change’s most challenging scenarios with design solutions that suggest the profound adaptability of the design field to meet environmental challenges in the future. Through 2100: A Dystopian Utopia, Vanessa Keith and StudioTEKA visualize possible design solutions to suggest the profound adaptability and possibilities of the design field to meet environmental challenges in the future. The issue is framed by noted sociologist, Saskia Sassen, with her preface and advocacy of “delegating back to the environment”." -StudioTEKA
Vanessa Keith is a registered architect and the Principal of Studioteka, an award-winning design firm she founded in 2003. Based in DUMBO, Brooklyn, Studioteka approaches design through a multidisciplinary lens that spans the boundaries between architecture, economic and social development, and urban and environmental concerns. Vanessa is especially interested in the issues faced by cities as they adapt to climate change, and in envisioning design-oriented technical and engineering solutions to environmental problems. The firm’s design work and writing has appeared in USA Today, Frame Magazine, Mark Magazine, The Architect’s Newspaper, Hinge Magazine, Surface Asia, Urban Omnibus, Landscape Architecture Magazine, Metropolis and Design Bureau. Vanessa is the author of 2100: A Dystopian Utopia – the City After Climate Change, a book on the future of cities in a hotter world with a preface by Saskia Sassen, published by Terreform as part of Michael Sorkin’s Urban Research Series. She is also an editor of “Kingston Harbor: Development Transects,” a book of urban design work published by Columbia University in 2010. The firm’s work ranges from urban, residential and commercial design, interior design, lighting and custom elements, planning, feasibility studies and investment packages, as well as design research and writing. - StudioTEKA
This event is hosted by the Professional Development Committee of the MPA in Environmental Science and Policy program.
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