Territory: Architecture Beyond Environment

Summary

Edited by David Gissen, Territory: Architecture Beyond Environment proposes a different relationship between architecture and nature. Instead of simply adapting buildings to an existing environment, it explores how architectural interventions can influence atmospheres, vegetation, habitats, geothermal exchanges, and other environmental processes.
The issue brings together architects, historians, geographers, and theorists. Contributions explore subjects such as green façades, tree canopies, animal habitats, toxic landscapes, amphibious territories, experimental ecological installations, and urban environmental systems.
Its central argument is that architecture can participate in producing environmental conditions and new relationships between human and non-human systems. This makes the publication relevant to contemporary debates about ecological design, landscape urbanism, and experimental environmental architecture.

Key takeaways

• Architecture can actively produce environmental conditions rather than merely respond to them.
• The relationship between buildings and nature can be understood as a dynamic process.
• Environmental design extends beyond energy efficiency and conventional green-building strategies.
• Vegetation and building surfaces can influence urban microclimates and ecological relationships.
• Tree canopies and landscape systems can inform architectural and urban design.
• Animal habitats and biodiversity deserve consideration in the built environment.
• Toxicity and environmental disturbance can become subjects of architectural investigation.
• Geography provides useful ways to understand the relationship between buildings, territories, and ecological systems.
• Experimental architecture can explore interactions between materials, organisms, and environmental forces.
• Urban environments are shaped by interconnected natural, social, and technological processes.
• Architecture can influence how people experience and understand environmental change.
• Ecological design requires consideration of effects beyond an individual building boundary.
• Conventional ideas of context and environment can be challenged through interdisciplinary research.
• Environmental interventions should be assessed for their actual ecological consequences, not only their visual appearance.

Practical application

Site analysis: Study vegetation, drainage, wind, heat, wildlife, and surrounding land uses as interconnected systems.



Façade design: Explore green façades and other surface strategies while assessing irrigation, maintenance, structure, and ecological suitability.



Landscape integration: Coordinate building form with trees, soil, water movement, and existing habitats.



Urban design: Investigate how buildings and public spaces influence local microclimates and environmental experience.



Environmental research: Map ecological relationships and identify potential effects of proposed interventions.



Material selection: Evaluate material durability, toxicity, resource impacts, and interactions with local environmental conditions.



Experimental design: Develop concepts that integrate architecture, landscape, and environmental processes.



Performance evaluation: Test ecological proposals using relevant measurements, simulations, and site observations.



Bangladesh application: Explore flood-responsive design, water-sensitive landscapes, urban heat mitigation, vegetation, and relationships between buildings and monsoon environments.



Critical assessment: Consider unintended consequences, including maintenance demands, water consumption, habitat disruption, and long-term environmental effects.

Good to know

Who it's for: Architecture students, practicing architects, landscape architects, urban designers, environmental researchers, and architectural theorists

ISBN: 9780470721650

Topics

Ecological Architecture Environmental Design Human Geography Physical Geography Architecture and Nature Landscape Architecture Urban Ecology Green Façades Living Systems Biodiversity Environmental Modification Toxic Environments Atmospheric Design Material Ecology Experimental Architecture Contemporary Architectural Theory