Underdome
Underdome is an architect’s guide to contending energy agendas. A cross between an architectural handbook and a voter’s guide, the project maps approaches to energy management and performance to examine their implications for public life.
Underdome is an architect’s guide to contending energy agendas. A cross between an architectural handbook and a voter’s guide, the project maps approaches to energy management and performance to examine their implications for public life. Underdome catalogs a spectrum of positions argued for by a diverse cast including economists, environmentalists, community advocates, political scientists, and designers. In turn, it highlights in architecture questions of professional agency, the contemporary city, and collective priorities in the face of uncertain energy futures.
Accompanying the project’s launch in October, we organized the Underdome Sessions, a series of panel discussions at Studio-X New York. The four session topics reflect the structure of the online voter’s guide: Territory maps energy’s spatial arguments and implications, Power links energy and authority, Lifestyle looks at culture and consumption, and finally, Risk cuts across these fields and asks how we set priorities among a diverse set of interests and contingencies. Through this lens, participants in the panel discussions—designers, planners, engineers, policy makers, economists, historians, entrepreneurs, community advocates, and journalists—debated the implications of energy’s public reach.
Project credits: Janette Kim and Erik Carver
Project Manager: Leah Meisterlin
Research Assistants: Momo Araki, Kyle Hovenkotter, Standish Lee, Jake Matatyaou, Simon McGown, Parker Seybold, George Valdes, Benjamin Weinryb-Grosghal.
Project Partners: Underdome is supported by the Van Alen Institute New York Prize Fellowship, and Studio-X New York