RISD-HYUNDAI RESEARCH COLLABORATIVE

Spring 2021

Overview

This course will research how natures, technologies, and social interactions can redefine smart cities as adaptive ecologies. As researchers, we will begin by examining, documenting, and modeling natural energy systems as decentralized, self-organized, and adaptive. How are these structures of energy related to their large ecological conditions? What can we learn from these systems about social organization? We aim to understand how nature metabolizes and distributes energy in both centralized and decentralized networks, and how these networks create adaptive relationships between ecological, technological, and social systems.

As designers, we will focus on the issue of how communities can live with nature, as well as be a part of its dynamic processes. How do energy infrastructures, social infrastructures, and natural ecosystems interact? How can these systems be adaptive to each other and the changing social conditions of urbanization and ruralization, as well as the potential for environmental destruction? In order to take on these questions, we will work with analytical models and scenario-based planning to propose ecological modules, social scenarios, and technological fragments of future environments. Our goal is to design new systems of sustainable energy infrastructures that are adaptive to the changing ecological and social conditions our societies will face.