Transition as Condition _ In Time of War _ Reconstruction as Strategy and Practice

Urban design and architecture operate not only under conditions of transition and persistent instability, but increasingly also under the dynamics of crisis. Violent disruption and catastrophic events — acts of war and environmental disasters caused by anthropogenic climate change — are increasingly frequent and ubiquitous conditions of urbanization. These events can no longer be considered as isolated or exceptional, but rather as constitutive of global urbanization processes and practices. Construction in this context is more and more a continuous process of reconstruction. These dynamics, their impact on the built environment and their significance for urban design and planning practices, are the central concerns of the course.

In Time of War frames the research in terms of the agency of the design and planning disciplines in the context of war and puts forward the proposition that in time of war those disciplines and the project of reconstruction itself must adopt the stratagems of war — tactics, strategy, and practice — if they are to achieve their objectives. In the course, we will engage that proposition and explore a range of critical frameworks and research methodologies for understanding the dynamics of reconstruction theoretically, historically, and spatially across scales.

The starting point for the investigation is the current war in Ukraine. Russian aggression against Ukraine began in 2014 with the occupation and annexation of Crimea; it escalated with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and is now nearing the end of its third year. Yet, in Ukraine reconstruction is already underway, even as the destruction continues. These conditions and the practices of reconstruction that are emerging in that context, provide an initial framework for examining the dynamics of reconstruction more broadly within the discourses of planning and development, peacemaking and reconciliation, sustainability and resilience. The investigation is historical, theoretical and interdisciplinary. It involves research on a broad range of reconstruction programs and projects in the context of wars and natural disasters from the early 20th century to today.

We will examine critical concepts and relationships between transition & crisis, strategy & practice, war & postwar, cold war & warming war. We will interrogate those concepts and relationships as  epistemological categories, examine the paradigms on which they are based, and work to develop critical methods and visual techniques for site-based investigation of conditions and interventions that are dynamic, unstable, and continuously transforming.

In the second part of the semester students will apply these methodologies to the analysis of a particular site of conflict and/or disruption during the time period covered by the class in a locus and geography of 
their choice. The topics for these individual research projects will be determined in consultation with the instructor within the first six weeks of the semester. The purpose of the project is to examine the dynamics of destruction and intervention, and the significance of those conditions and practices for the design and planning disciplines. The objective is to investigate how those dynamics, practices, impacts, long- and short-term consequences and meanings, can be understood and represented through research methods that bring together a range of media, published and archival resources, and site-based spatial analysis. The final project will have a written and visual/graphic component and will be due on May 5, 2025. The project will also be presented in class at the end of the semester.