The 71:2 issue of the Journal of Architectural Education was recently published on the theme of Environments. Marc J. Neveu, Associate Dean of the School of Architecture at Woodbury University in Los Angeles, serves as executive editor of the biannual peer-reviewed academic journal.
Environments explores the Anthropocene through connections between the environments and human constructions. The issue “recognizes that not only has the scope of human activity reached a point at which it has the capacity to fundamentally alter the geophysical processes of the planet, but also that the environment itself is a human construction rather than an a priori condition.” Through a series of writings, the journal investigates how the environment is both a space and a representation. The environment “situates humans within a world, and defines the manner in which that world is understood, experienced, and engaged. This makes the environment a fundamentally architectural issue. Rather than simply the context within which architecture performs, the environment is actually defined by architecture—and, like architecture, it has been and continues to be manifested in various incarnations with multiple meanings and implications. These various environments are revealed at all of the scales at which architecture operates, such as a room, a building, a façade, a city, and an infrastructure.”
The JAE has been the primary venue for research and commentary on architectural education since it was founded in 1947, making it the oldest continuing operating journal of its kind.
The issue can be accessed on the JAE website. Image courtesy of JAE Online.