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Biophilic Urbanism - Studio Alpha
This course aims to dissect an internationally-recognized “biophilic city”, Portland, by analyzing why and how it reached such a status, and by trying to foresee its future challenges. This workshop will focus on the city phenomena and how it can be affected by its proximity to nature. The complex reality of a city cannot be defined by just a handful of parameters, but rather by the interaction between many interconnected agents and their relationship with their surroundings. Similarly, a biophilic city cannot be simply defined as a city with abundant green: it is necessary to understand how nature actually influences all the layers that conform the city: networks, infrastructure, program, economy, energy, climate, architecture, people... Portland is unique in its relationship with nature in the sense that a very specific culture has emerged from it. This makes Portland a perfect opportunity to measure the tangible and intangible relationships that occur when a city and nature fuse into a holistic system. It is the intent of this workshop to track Portland’s relationship with nature throughout history, understand how the city has been able to maintain the balance between development and nature, and propose strategic interventions for new ecological prototypes to align with these existing environmental and social patterns.

Studio Tutors:
Mary Polites, Ignacio Lopez Buson
Students:
Wei Tianxi, Li Yurou, Zhiyao Shu, Shao Yanxi