Environment, contemporary issues - Sustainability and transition

Environment and contemporary issues

This course draws on approaches from environmental history to offer tools, methods, and narratives that enable us to situate architectural issues both in the materiality of the environments they mobilize and in the history of which these environments and issues are both products and vectors. These approaches invite us to understand, in the historical context of their formation, the material dependencies that structure our societies and guide architectural practices. They also shed light on the historical roots of major contemporary environmental crises. The main objective of this course is to develop a historical and critical understanding of territories and their production, as well as ways of living, in order to promote the emergence and consolidation of architectural, landscape, and urban planning practices that are mindful of their consequences.

The course will cover the following points:

• Introduction. From progress to devastation: environmental history and historical narratives
• Land appropriation and resource production
• The visual representation of territories: perspectives, maps and landscapes
• The ecologies of capitalism: plantations, (unequal) colonial trade and globalization
• Industrializing territories and governing pollution
• Energy symbiosis: the intertwined powers of industrial societies
• Agricultural modernization: the reciprocal construction of urban and rural territories
• Urban ecologies: epidemics, pests and domesticity

Sustainability and transition

This part of this course aims to provide students with a scientific knowledge base from a full range of disciplines pertaining to the environmental and social issues of sustainability and transition.

Environment and contemporary issues

At the end of this course, students will be able to ::

- Understand the fundamental methods and knowledge of environmental history and their relevance to the fields of architecture.

More specifically:

- situate the emergence of contemporary socio-environmental issues in history.
- account for the deeply intertwined and inseparable relationships between human and non-human histories
and non-human histories (through the analysis of specific projects, territories and materials).
- develop the ability to describe and critically analyse the production of territories i.e.
in what they imply and generate in terms of socio-environmental relations and transformations.

All of the learning in the teaching unit enables the student to develop the competences in the Faculty's reference framework and, more specifically, the competence(s):

- Enter into exploratory, sensitive, critical reading,...

- Study the various components of the theme and context (historical, landscape, built, environmental, cultural, social, economic, legal, technological,...) ?Include environmental, landscape, cultural, socio-political values
- Take into account the site's climatic and geographical factors

 

Sustainability and transition

At the end of the part of this course, and on the basis of the scientific content presented, students will be able to:

• Describe, differentiate and question the dynamics and interactions of the different spheres of the Earth system;
• Describe and analyse the interactions between the human and the Earth systems;
• Demonstrate the importance of considering the issues of sustainability and transition from a systemic point of view;
• Develop a critical and reflective mindset that enables them to analyse current issues;
• Use the scientific knowledge base to combat feelings of eco-anxiety

Sustainability and transition

None 

Environment and contemporary issues

Lecture

Sustainability and transition

Contents learned autonomously include:

• Videos.
• Video transcripts.
• Additional resources (optional)

Environment and contemporary issues

Face-to-face course


Additional information:

In face-to-face mode, in an auditorium

Sustainability and transition

Remote course


Further information:

The teaching method is distance learning. This part of the course is made up of several videos and recommends optional reading material.

Environment and contemporary issues

Platform(s) used for course materials:
- eCampus


Further information:

Platform(s) used for course materials:
- eCampus


Further information:

Projected media available on eCampus

Recommended reading :
J-B. Fressoz, & al., Introduction à l'histoire environnementale, Paris, La Découverte, 2014.C. Bonneuil, J-B. Fressoz, J-R. Viallet, Nous avons mangé la Terre : l'évènement anthropocène, Paris, Le Seuil, 2022 A. Zimmer, Brouillards toxiques. Vallée de la Meuse, 1930, contre-enquête, Bruxelles, ZS, 2016.

Each session will be accompanied by textual or audiovisual references to consult (podcasts, videos, documentaries), in connection with the topic covered.

Sustainability and transition

Platform(s) used for course materials:
- eCampus


Further information:

Videos, optional reading material and guidelines will be provided via the eCampus platform.

3 optional evenings will be dedicated to this SPOC (meetings with certain speakers and discussions around the themes of this part of the course). The dates are 20/11, 28/11 and 9/12.

Environment and contemporary issues

Exam(s) in session

Any session

- In-person

written exam ( multiple-choice questionnaire )


Further information:

Exam(s) in session

Any session

- In-person

written exam ( multiple-choice questionnaire )


Additional information:

Weighting: 80% for the ' environment, contemporary issues' part and 20% for the 'Sustainability and transition' part.

Sustainability and transition

Exam(s) in session

Any session

- Remote

written exam ( multiple-choice questionnaire )

Continuous assessment


Further information:

Online testing must be completed by 12 May 2025 12h00  and second session by 2 September 2025 12h00.

Weighting: 80% for the 'environment and contemporary issues' part and 20% for the 'sustainability and transition' part.

Sustainability and transition

None 

Sustainability and transition

None 

Environment and contemporary issues

Alexis Zimmer, azimmer@uliege.

Sustainability and transition

Prof. Sybille Mertens and Floriane Fassotte/Elise Pirenne (durabilite.transition@uliege.be)

Sustainability and transition

There is no MOOC associated with this course.