C-HAT (Crustacean Heart and Activity Tracker), a fit-bit-like technology attached to lobsters caught off the coast of Portland to monitor their stress level as they make their way from Maine to markets across the globe. 

ARC3018HF
Fall 2024 Thesis Seminar
Instructor: Richard Sommer 
Meeting Section: L0104
Mondays 12:00-3:00 p.m.

What phenomena characterize places physically and existentially threatened by the changing weather, rising tides and social upheaval brought by climate change? Portland, Maine provides a compelling case study. Centuries-old, with successive Native American, colonial and industrial settlements, Portland contains some of the most beautiful and historically important architecture and landscape in North America. While still a small city, Portland must accommodate a two billion dollar globally networked fishing & lobster industry, three million tourists each year, as well as the housing shortages, lack of affordability and alienation that growing gentrification brings.  

And now, the threats of climate change loom…

The Agenda

LOBSTER TALES will join a constellation of other students, researchers and universities from across North America to study and generate design ideas and architectural solutions meant to broadly address how cities and towns can adapt to the many phenomena at the intersections of climate change, social inequity and the neural networks that affect them today.

The non-profit initiative Envision Resilience will generously fund our two semesters of thesis work, including travel, research and a publication. The Envision Resilience Challenge connects academia, local leadership and community members, and is devoted to inspiring coastal communities to use design and design thinking to mitigate the impacts of climate change. They sponsor multidisciplinary teams of architects and landscape architects, designers, engineers, environmental scientists, naturalists, journalists and artists to reimagine coastal communities. See: www.envisionresilience.org

The Fall term seminar will be devoted to finding ways to bring the various interests and subjects students hope to bring to their thesis, to the diverse geography, architecture and history of Portland/South Portland, Maine. After the Fall thesis research seminar, Daniels Masters students will individually undertake thesis projects in the Winter. Portland may subsequently become a site for individual thesis projects or may serve as a reference case for other situations and places students wish to work on.  

As representatives of the University of Toronto, our LOBSTER TALES group will be able to draw on, and share ideas with an array of experts, local Portland officials, along with students and faculty from University of Buffalo, Cornell, Harvard, University of Maine, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, and Yale.  

Some Overlapping Questions and Potential Areas of Focus

How can thinking in terms of time (as much as space) – from notions of deep time to annual, seasonal, and daily calendars, considering plant and animal/human lifecycles together – inform a program of design and emergent architecture?

What kinds of pictures, maps, stories, design models, and planning tools might best empower a city’s communities and citizens to be transformative stewards of their surroundings?

How can we build upon a city’s stock of historic and natural features – including buildings, landscapes, infrastructure, monuments, and trails – to create new landmarks that might double-function to mitigate the effects of climate change, create public amenities, or wildlife habitats?

Can we better design for human lifecycles and aging-in-place, integrating housing, communal amenities, and recreational and health-sustaining spaces?

Can a new form of urban cluster(s) bring greater mobility, walkability, energy efficiency and everyday services to the quasi-suburban areas surrounding cities?

What opportunities exist to activate lands that lie at the margins between private and publicly held areas – shorelines, sidewalks, parking lots, or between public infrastructure and industrial spaces? Can a more flexible architecture adapt to a changing climate and seasonal weather patterns (i.e. taking the ad-hoc outdoor spaces created for dining and performances during the pandemic as inspiration)?

Course Logistics

The Fall seminar will include sessions on thesis framing, shared and individually focused readings, and discussions/sharing of research with the broader Envision Resilience network, including talks by outside experts.

Travel: Fall Travel (fully funded) to Portland Maine/US East Coast will take place during reading week, at the end of October.  

Public Exhibition of Initial Research Findings: January 2025