Felipe Correa, GSD Design Critic in Urban Design, receives a Graham Foundation Grant for Arizona Research
Felipe Correa, Design Critic in Urban Design, recently received a research grant from the Graham Foundation for his research project, “Scarcity: Bipolar Urbanisms in the Sonoran Desert.” The investigation, which focuses on the Phoenix–Tucson (Arizona) mega-region as a point of departure, explores the relationship between fast-paced forms of urban development in North American cities and a host of environmental resources that support them. Through the use of trans-scalar cartographic pieces, this research proposes to construct a critical atlas that frames the Phoenix–Tucson mega-region within its broader environment. The project will bring together in a single picture plane a host of geographies and scales that inform the urban modus operandi of the Sonoran metroscapes. Through this process, the research will make visible the eclipsed environmental and infrastructural dynamics that facilitate urban activity within this arid region. Furthermore, the work will allow for the unfolding of a new territorial grammar that captures the terrain’s potential to adopt new, deft infrastructural morphologies and environmental systems that can competently reformat this area to accommodate sound urban patterns that are responsive to an environmentally fragile geography.
In addition to the initial Graham Foundation grant, the project receives the strategic support of a number of individuals and institutions, including Douglas Meffert (Loeb Fellow 2007-2008) and the Tulane/ Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research.
The project team includes principal investigator Felipe Correa with Noel Murphy and Maria Arquero as collaborators.
Image: Scheme for “Scarcity: Bipolar Urbanisms in the Sonoran Desert.”