New Geographies 4: Scales of the Earth

In retrospect, texts like "The Form of the Territory" — by Vittorio Gregotti, published thirty years ago — were visionary; the forecast of a liberation and a burden. By broadening the object of architecture beyond building, they expanded the discipline's domain into a multitude of subjects and scales, capable of modeling the landscape and urban environments, of obtaining maximum design effectiveness while using minimum energy; they suggested that design disciplines were competent, if not responsible, for thinking and working on the deliberate construction of the territory.

This once dormant potential now lies beneath most editorial work, the academy, research, and arguably the practice of architecture. Previous investigations, mainly based on the revision of particular works and authors, are giving way to collaborative efforts that favor the study of the circumstances and conditions that presumably shape the built environment. New Geographies, a publication series initiated and edited by six doctoral candidates at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, undoubtedly contributes to the latter endeavor. Distancing itself from conventional positions and professional boundaries, the journal collects critical essays and projects to expose new venues for inquiring and producing inventive knowledge.

New Geographies, 4: Scales of the Earth, edited by El Hadi Jazairy, centers on the concept of scale as an alternative framework to address global concerns and space. Jazairy opens the issue by stating that further investigations on the plasticity of scale — a scale that does not represent a fixed environment but is dynamic and "expands and contracts through the interaction of objects and people" — will allow to structure and study different levels of relationships without falling into the "homogenizing assumptions" that discourses like globalization imply. Characterized by the diversity of its contributors — a photographer, a geographer, an engineer, an environmentalist, a pilot and photographer, a historian, a social and cultural geographer, several architects and landscape designers — the issue carries on with two correlated essays by Robin Kelsey and Nicholas de Monchaux. While both begin with the standard reference to NASA's Apollo programs and Earth photographs, they quickly turn into provocative arguments that investigate the significance and global impact of both the imagery and institutional agendas. On the one hand, Kelsey exposes the irony that such images — usually considered a sign of humanity and ecological fragility — emerged from intense military rivalry and aided the broadcasting of two opposing worldviews; a universal and totalizing discourse on power and a more modest ecological philosophy acknowledging the planet's finitude and isolation. On the other, de Monchaux elaborates on how space exploration, techniques, and methods found their way into urban planning and "reintroduced the notion of the city as a scientific subject," abandoning nineteenth-century biological models and moving towards urban experiments based on ideas of information flow and feedback — a mix of successful and failing attempts to deploy systems management, prefabrication, expandable architecture systems, and other related strategies. Stuart Elden's The Space of the World closes the group of essays related to general large-scale issues and explores on "how the world became an object of thought." Though mostly an outline of his upcoming work, Elden provides an insightful categorization of global problematic and issues — violence, fossils, earth, wound, volume, and play — that escape the typical political, economical, and cultural thematic approach.

Further contributions address topics that range from territorial security to geographic information systems, with a project-based midsection that illustrates actual design applications that relate to the issue's focus. Stephen Graham offers a characterization of the new in-and-out as defined by the international organized system of borders and security. Nathalie Roseau acknowledges the problematic of aerial photography and imagery whose objectives can easily "go from being all-encompassing to totalitarian." Adnan Morshed revisits the lessons from Buckminister Fuller's first book Nine Chains to the Moon. Dangermond, interviewed by El Hadi Jazairy, reflects on the past, present, and future of geographic information systems while Ola Söderström elaborates on the role of images in the production of an urban world scale.

Finally, Scales of the Earth presents a set of contributions that raise critical questions related to the relevance of the design disciplines in shaping the current and the future global environment. The World According to Architecture, by Hashim Sarkis, argues that architects still have the "ability to construct new worlds" and they can further expand these skills by inscribing their buildings as part of a particular view; protecting the functional dimension of architecture; encouraging new habits of living; exploring the attributes of the generic; and maintaining the autonomy of the discipline. However, two case studies defy Sarkis' disciplinary optimism; Discounting Territories, on Wal-Mart, and On Google Earth and Google Earth as Dionysusphere, both on Google Inc.. Marc Angelli and Cary Siress essay demonstrates how Wal-Mart is a global and truly multi-scalar operation and how a myriad of anonymous professionals and designers manage to pervade almost every level of life on the planet, for good and for bad, and through the most ordinary things — from product boxes and retail box-stores to global logistics. Mark Dorian, Paul Kingsbury, John Paul Jones III, and Theo Deutinger build the case for Google Inc., as well. The company's products — from Gmail and Google Earth to Google Talk and Google plus — encompass most of contemporary technological desires and is increasingly ever-present, having measurable effects both on personal and global territories. It is in this debate that New Geographies, 4: Scales of the Earth seems to be the most productive, prompting the question of whether architecture, urban planning and design, and landscape design have enough competencies and leverage, by themselves, to produce significant impact on the built environment and in all its scales. Or if, in fact, they will have to associate with additional disciplines, professionals, knowledge, and institutions to be able to achieve a truly meaningful influence on today's world.