Spring 2024
Earth, Water, Air, Fire: Designing with Elements. The Case of Ioannina, Greece

Taught by Prof. Dr. Florian Hertweck and Dr. Marija Maric

This design studio takes the four elements—earth, water, air, and fire—as its starting point to rethink practices of reparative design for spatial justice of cities and territories situated in the broader region of Ioannina, Greece. During the last couple of years, different regions of Greece have made newspaper headlines due to its catastrophic weather events, spanning from extreme heat waves, devastating storms, forest fires, flooding, to name just some. The effects of these destructive effects have been countless: from loss of biodiversity to the destruction of public infrastructures and private homes. Coupled with the lack of structural funding from municipalities and the state as well as coherent strategies for both the repair of broken infrastructures and designing more resilient spaces, these extreme climate conditions could lead to the permanent vulnerability of entire regions and their communities as well as forced climate migration, both on the global and national levels. Working across different scales—from domestic spaces to housing, public infrastructure, landscape, and territories—this design studio will aim towards developing design strategies for more resilient spaces and communities in the context of climate change. We will ask: how can we see what we traditionally describe as four ‘natural’ elements (fire, earth, air, and water) and their climate ramifications such as storms, heat waves, floods, droughts, to name just some, as consequences of our political, economic, environmental practices? What is the role of ephemeral events, such as weather, in the permanent reshaping of cities, landscapes, and territories? How can we, starting from analysis of elements and weather, rethink structural conditions such as property relations, construction paradigm, practices of land and soil sealing, infrastructural investment, that shape our environments?

Poster design: Anton Westbom Weflö