In our seminar with Michael Salka and Mariano Gomez Luque, we explored the meaning of ecology and the multifaceted challenges of sustainability, materiality and humanity’s relationship with the planet. Over eight weeks, we delved into two distinct but deeply connected approaches to build with ecological thinking and addressing climate change as well as envisioning a more sustainable future—one rooted in the tangible realities of the built environment, the other in the abstract philosophies of urbanization and planetary systems.
The first half of the seminar, led by Michael, focused on practical solutions in architecture and construction. We examined the urgent need for the building industry to adopt sustainable practices, integrating bio-based materials like timber, bamboo, and hemp to sequester carbon and mitigate climate change. A central theme was “carbon sequestration,” the idea that materials used in construction should absorb and store more carbon than they emit. We also explored circular economy principles, such as reusing and recycling materials, and advanced tools like Building Information Modeling (BIM), which optimize resource efficiency across a building’s lifecycle. Michael’s sessions emphasized actionable steps to transform the built environment into a solution rather than a problem in the fight against climate change. Each Week we read several papers and articles about the topic and presented one of them in depth to the class and discussed it.
The second half, with Mariano, shifted toward the theory of urbanization. Moving away from construction and materials, we explored how the planet itself functions as a connected system, challenging traditional divisions like urban versus rural. We discussed the recent rise of LLM (Ai), planetary-scale computation, urban networks, and through the lens of Sci-Fi future visions of sustainability. Mariano Gomez Luque invited us to think critically about humanity’s role in reshaping the planet, blending speculative philosophy with systemic thinking about urbanization, technology, and the Anthropocene. Those four lectures were structured in a more classical manner where we all read the same text, wrote a micro essay about it with the help of Large language models such as ChatGPT to be prepare for Mariano Gomez Luque’s lecture and fruitful discussions.
Together, these two approaches highlighted the breadth of ecological intelligence. Michael’s sessions grounded us in the immediate, material changes needed to combat climate change, while Mariano’s sessions encouraged us to think big—considering how our systems, networks, and philosophies must evolve to support a sustainable, equitable planet. These lectures were insightful about the state of the art ecological thinking and what we as the MAEBB Class of 24/25 think of it.
