Richard Ingersoll at urbanNext

Although I've spent very little time at urbanNext – a project by Actar aimed at "expanding architecture to rethink cities" – recently I found myself engrossed with Ricardo Devesa's four-part interview with Richard Ingersoll, which I discovered via Actar's three-part Imminent Commons books. The interview happened during the "Architecture: Change of Climate" conference that took place at the Fundación Arquitectura y Sociedad in Pamplona, Spain, in 2016.

I'm not very familiar with the work of architectural historian Ingersoll, who teaches at Syracuse University in Florence and other programs in Italy. My only exposure to date was Sprawltown, a short book from 2006 that I remember enjoying very much. In my review of that book, I noted that Ingersoll "acknowledges that environmental factors, more than human, will push us to change our ways." While all these years later, I would take out "more than human" from that statement, since the environmental problems we face are human-created, Ingersoll's focus on the environment more than buildings was apparent then. In turn, Ingersoll's focus on agriculture, vegetation, and natural buildings over much capital-A architecture permeates the four-part interview. I could see a book coming out of the ideas and research he elucidates over roughly 40 minutes.

Although there is no indication at urbanNext as to the order of the four videos, I've embedded them below into my best guess. Nevertheless, the videos – ranging from 6 to 12 minutes in length – can be watched in any order or individually. If you only have the time or patience for one, I'd recommend the last, "Architects of Global Warming."