Infrastructural Optimism

Linda C. Samuels

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781351060257
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

Infrastructural Optimism investigates a new kind of twenty-first-century infrastructure, one that encourages a broader understanding of the interdependence of resources and agencies, recognizes a rightfully accelerated need for equitable access and distribution, and prioritizes rising environmental diligence across the design disciplines. Bringing together urban history, case studies, and speculative design propositions, the book explores and defines infrastructure as the basis for a new form of urbanism, emerging from the intersection of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. In defining this new infrastructure, the book introduces new dynamic and holistic performance metrics focused on "measuring what matters" over growth for the sake of growth and twelve criteria that define next generation infrastructure. By shifting the focus of infrastructure – our largest public realm – to environmental symbiosis and quality of life for all, design becomes a catalytic component in creating a more beautiful, productive, and optimistic future with Infrastructural Urbanism as its driver. Infrastructural Optimism will be invaluable to design, non-profit and agency professionals, and faculty and students in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design, working in partnership with engineers, hydrologists, ecologists, urban planners, community members, and others who shape the built environment through the expanded field of infrastructure.

INDEX

Aaron, Robbie 127, 129, 166

Abbott, Greg 115

academic-based community design centers (CDCs) 61

accessory dwelling units (ADUs) 23

activism 18, 30; awareness and 59; environmental 16; new forms of 61-62

adaptive ecological design 30

ADOT see Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT)

ADUs see accessory dwelling units (ADUs)

"advocacy loops" 223

aershop 96, 231

Afrofuturism xv

AFH see Architecture for Humanity (AFH)

Airbnb 262

air pollution 7, 32, 128

Allen, Danielle 269

Allen, Julie 104n49

Allen, Stan 26, 38-41, 51 n48

alternative urbanisms 20, 67

America in Ruins: The Decaying Infrastructure (Choate and Walter) 56, 57

American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (ASHTO) 64, 111

American exceptionalism 9

American postwar identity 106

American Public Works Association (APWA) 73, 238

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) 3, 7, 60, 61, 238

American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) 3, 55

Andrews, Stratton 159

Ant Farm 36

Anthropocene 109, 229

anti-establishment design collectives 35

APWA see American Public Works Association (APWA)

Aquaculture Canal_New Orleans 100

Arbery, Ahmaud 8

Archigram 36, 37

Architecture Association (AA) 22

Architecture for Humanity (AFH) 61, 62

Architecture Lobby 242

Arendt, Hannah 2...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Half Title
• Table of Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• FOREWORD / Imagining the Architecture of Possible Futures
• INTRODUCTION /The Importance of Optimism
• 01. INFRASTRUCTURAL URBANISM in the Expanded Field
• 02. REINVENTING INFRASTRUCTURE / Why Now?
• 03. INFRASTRUCTURAL OPPORTUNISM / Three Strategies
• 04. INFRASTRUCTURAL OPPORTUNISM /Two Cases
• 05. CONCLUSION: Next Generation +10/Options for a Contentious Era
• 06. Notes from Sheltering in Place
• CREDITS
• INDEX