Lecture Series: Rania Ghosn & El Hadi Jazairy, DESIGN EARTH | Geostories

How might the geographic imagination convert into image and narrative the climate crisis, not only as a calamity of the physical environment but also as a predicament of the cultural one - of the systems of representation through which society relates to complex and unknown environmental futures?

Geostories is a series of speculative architectural projects that imagine the anthropogenic worlds of climate change. Each project synthesizes different forms and scales of knowledge on environmental externalities, such as oil extraction, deep-sea mining, and space debris, to speculate on ways of living with such legacy technologies on the planet.

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DESIGN EARTH is an architectural research practice led by Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy. DESIGN EARTH deploys aesthetics as a form of environmental engagement in the age of climate change. Their work is widely recognized, including a Young Architects Prize from Architectural League of New York. Commissions include projects for Venice Architecture Biennale, Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, Boston Design Biennale, Oslo Architecture Triennale. They exhibited in international art and culture institutions, including SFMOMA; Matadero, Madrid; MAAT, Lisbon; Sursock Museum, Beirut; Time Museum, Guangzhou; Le Lieu Unique, Nantes and Milano Triennale. Thier work was acquired by New York Museum of Modern Art. Ghosn and Jazairy are authors of Geostories: Another Architecture for the Environment (Actar, 2018), which is supported by a Graham Foundation grant, and Geographies of Trash (Actar, 2015)

Rania Ghosn is Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's School of Architecture + Planning. She holds a Doctor of Design degree from Harvard Graduate School of Design, a Master in Geography from University College London, and a Bachelor of Architecture from American University of Beirut. She is founding editor of New Geographies and editor of NG2: Landscapes of Energy.

El Hadi Jazairy is Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He holds a Doctor of Design from Harvard Graduate School of Design, a Master of Architecture from Cornell University, and a Bachelor of Architecture from La Cambre in Brussels. He is founding editor of New Geographies and editor of NG4: Scales of the Earth.