Nature of Enclosure

(Paperback)

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Nature of Enclosure interrogates the role of architecture and urbanisation in a post-pandemic society, to discuss topics from closed forms of capital to the exclusive boundaries of environment and politics.

From Crystal Palace in 1851 to Buckminster Fullers Spaceship Earth in 1969, nature became enclosed. Claimed to be a reaction of Norbert Wieners cybernetics, Fullers geodesic domes became symbols of American counterculture. Yet, from Fullers description of Spaceship Earth sea masters, the dome seems to prioritise an environment of occupation inside the dome, over those residing outsidea world of civilised control on its interior and wilderness, war, and wasteland on the other side. Overlapped by cultural consumption and politics, planetary imagination stimulates a useful framework for interrogating the human impact on environmental limitations over a technological foreground. The blurry lines between the engineered logic and cultural imagination are continually embedded and influenced by intuition in the cultural practices of capital enclosure. Theories, design practices, and the forms of imagination, including science fiction, open up critical questions on the status of our environment here on Earth.

Nature of Enclosure is a series of conversations to gather experts from a range of disciplines, including architects, landscape architects, architectural historians, design theory scholars, geographers, historians of science and technology, and professionals at the intersection of architecture and the environment. Organised in three parts, (1) Nature of the Synthetic Environment, (2) Air, Capital and the Planetary Imaginary, and (3) Enclosed Boundaries of Political Geographies, this book continues the conversation with a collection of essays as both reflections from the provocative discussions and expanding the discourse of enclosed environments in architecture and design fields.

With Contributions of Daisy Ames, Rachel Armstrong, Daniel Barber,Jordan Bimm, Galo Canizares, Mishuana Goeman,Mariano Gomez Luque, Aleksandra Jaeschke, Lydia Kallipoliti, Ersela Kripa, Mae-ling Lokko, Stephen Mueller, Joshua Nason, Antoine Picon, Shawn Rickenbacker, David Salomon, Fred Scharmen,Julia Smachylo, Geoffrey Thn, Jol Vacheron, and Kathy Velikov.

Reviews

"With a very special appeal and relevance to readers with an interest in Architecture, Urban & Land Use Planning, Design and the Decorative Arts, and Nature themed essays, "Nature of Enclosure" is an especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and academic library collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists." --Midwest Book Review
"Edited by Jeffrey S. Nesbit, Nature of Enclosure gathers over 20 experts in architecture, landscape design, design theory, geography, and tech, in order to interrogate the role of the built environment in a post-pandemic society." --Metropolis Magazine

Author Bio

Jeffrey S Nesbit is an architect, urban theorist, and founding director of the research group Grounding Design. Nesbit has written several journal articles and book chapters on infrastructure, urbanization, and the history of technology, and is editor of New Geographies 11 Extraterrestrial (Actar, 2019), Chasing the City: Models for Extra-Urban Investigations (Routledge, 2018), and Rio de Janeiro: Urban Expansion and Environment (Routledge, 2019). He holds a Doctor of Design from Harvard University Graduate School of Design, a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Texas Tech University.