At the Drop of a Hat

“If you are working on social justice… or social change you can never take for granted that progress will be permanent - you must have institutions who are durable and ready at the drop of a hat for whatever the challenge may be to join you in that challenge,” said architect Ross Exo Adams, not necessarily aware that with a few tweaks of the zoom settings the institution hosting his event, Cornell, had effectively boxed out an aspiring gaggle of digital protesters seeking some social change, or at least a statement, on behalf of DR. Samia Henni.

The gathering marked the new Master of Science in Advanced urban Design at Cornell, with presenters including Jesse LeCavalier, Lydia Kallipoliti, Peter Dwayne Robinson, Adam Lubinsky, Snoweria Zhang, and Shawn Rickenbacker. My favorite may have been Kallipoliti, who in the context of an exhibit about Mars at the London Design Museum, discussed “the politics of shit,” that is the geopolitics of living machines and excremental processes. She said that “understanding how to design such spaces depends largely under regenerative…