Measure for the Anthropocene

"Measure for the Anthropocene," Assistant Professor of Architecture, Neyran Turan's essay in the newly published Climates: Architecture and the Planetary Imaginary (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2016)  analyzes the intersection of our currently held views about architecture and climate change. Turan's essay considers cultural values ascribed to climate, and introduces us to the rise of the postmodern interpretation of climate and architecture. From geographer Mike Humes' sly observations on our understanding of climate change to 

From Turan's introduction:

"Introducing his recently published 2009 book Why We Disagree About Climate Change, geographer Mike Hulme writes, "Climate change is not 'a problem waiting for 'a soluntion.' It is an environmental, cultural and polictical phenomenon that is reshaping the way we think about ourselves, about our societies and about humanity's place on Earth...Rather than catalyzing disagreement about how, when and where to takcle climate change, we must approach the idea of climate change as an imaginative resource around which our collectivea nd persnal identities and projects can and should take shape."

Climates: Architecture and the Planetary Imaginary is a project of the Avery Review, a journal of critical essays about books, buildings, and other architectural media, produced by the Office of Publications at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation.

Neyran Turan is an assistant professor of architect at the University of California, Berkeley and a partner at NEMESTUDIO, a design collaborative based in the San Francisco Bay Area which recently received the 2016 Architecture League New Yrok Prize for Young Architects.

*Antropopcene is described as relating to, or denoting, the current geological age; viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.