Date: Friday, June 1, 2012
Time: 7:30 – 9 pm
Venue: Portland State University’s Shattuck Hall Annex
Address: 1914 SW Park Ave, Portland OR 97201
Cost: free & open to the public
Hosted by: PSU School of Architecture, with special thanks to Kai Pannu & Scott Burns
Talk title & description:
Beneficial Ruins & Water Webs: A Vernacular Design Challenge to Increase the Resilience of Local Ecologies & Human Communities
This talk explores the idea of a beneficial ruin—a creation that improves the conditions of the ecological and human communities where it resides, even when abandoned. A beneficial ruin must be in relationship with its place and its people. Typically it acts as a web, passively harvesting and enhancing natural flows, so that at its best it generates other resources, even while regenerating itself. Examples of such ruins from the drylands of the southwest U.S. and the Middle East will be shared, with an emphasis on those that improve water, soil, food, and community. Examples of what Portland is already doing—or could be doing—will be woven into the talk, challenging you to create and/or enhance such ruins or seeds of resilience in your place.