Public Lecture by Trea Sweeny, Visiting Assistant Professor

Emergent Territories: Arctic Architecture in Greenland
Radical cultural and ecological changes in circumpolar regions provide vital grounds to mark and project the physical manifestation of climate change. As some of the most rapidly evolving environments in the world, arctic regions will need to examine the role and development of an architecture that can adapt to the transforming landscape while remaining both culturally and socially contextual. In particular, Greenland must confront many effects of climate change, including significant recession of its ice sheet, changing precipitation dynamics (i.e., shifts in snowfall accumulation), rising sea levels, and larger glacial melt seasons. These conditions are reshaping Greenland’s physical and geopolitical terrain and altering fundamental cultural and sustenance practices throughout the country. Through research, past conceptual work, and examples of contemporary projects in the region, this lecture will examine how architecture can respond to both current and emergent ground conditions in the face of imminent change.