Planetability: Ecologies of Health in a Planetary Age
Call for Abstract for the Symposium
Exhibitions & Events
While cities have long been cohabited by a multiplicity of species, the dominance of human exceptionalism has rendered invisible the myriad lives that historically and socially cohabit and produce urban space. Design, planning and urban governance have arguably contributed to this situation making cities increasingly inhospitable environments for more-than-human life. Socio-environmental research shows this strong separation between humans and nonhumans has health effects through increased exposure to pollution, epidemic outbreaks and zoonotic spillover. At the same time, chains of capital have introduced “exotic” pathogens and species into unprepared ecosystems affecting the health of bio- and ecospheres. It becomes increasingly clear, not least through the interlinked climate and biodiversity crisis, that human health is interdependent on the health of other species. We might understand these fragile more-than-human relations as ecologies of planetary health, where what is at stake is how we live and die together, on and with the planet.
Planetary thinking in health examines the relationships between environmental, human, and more-than-human health within a critical framework. From the microscopic to the planetary, from concentrated to extensive spatial conditions, it urges us to move beyond binary frameworks in shaping urban futures with a focus on the intricate ecologies of multispecies health constituting space across urban and rural boundaries. By recognising human and non-human life as part of the planetary system upon which survival depends, it becomes urgent to reimagine and redesign alternative futures of cohabiting our planet – what we might call designing for “planetability”.
Against this background, the symposium asks: What does it mean to position health as a framework for urban spaces as multispecies environments? How might centring ecologies of health better equip us to address the intertwined challenges of climate change, environmental injustices, biodiversity loss, and social inequality in design and planning processes?
Call for abstract
We invite graduate students, PhD candidates and early-career researchers to send a max. 300 word abstract of your work to be presented at the symposium. We welcome ongoing thesis research, design proposals, specific case studies, pedagogical experiments, and research contributions from design, ecology, landscape or urban studies, which consider the material interactions between health, ecology and the planetary in reclaiming the urban as a planetary space for cohabitation.
We are unfortunately not able to cover potential travel expenses.
Abstract Deadline: 31/12/2024
Notification acceptance: 06/01/2025
Event: 31/01/2025
Location: Forum, Institute of Architecture. Straße des 17. Juni 152, 10623 Berlin. Time to be confirmed
Hosted by: the “Planetability” Working Group (Technische Universität Berlin, Universidade de São Paulo, and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul). In collaboration with the Chair of Urban Design and Urbanisation (CUD) and the Chair for Transitioning Urban Ecosystems (CUE) at the Institute of Architecture, Technische Universität Berlin and in association with the Berlin University Alliance project “Multispecies Health” and the urban lab “Planetary Tactics for Cohabitation”.
