The management of energy too often defers to the invisible hand of the market or keeps its hands off Mother Nature. Strategies like weatherization, zoning reform, and consumption tweaks can help maximize services while lowering bills. But they don’t just save dollars or watts. They also support tacit narratives of lifestyle, property rights, and the horizons of political possibility. What roles should governments and corporations play in reshaping infrastructure? How can we re-imagine the American Dream? Should we produce more or consume less? What risks are we willing to take, and who should take responsibility for them? As we calculate the effectiveness of these approaches, we must also evaluate what has not been accounted for and why. In this talk, Janette Kim will discuss findings from her recent book, The Underdome Guide to Energy Reform (with Erik Carver, published by Princeton Architectural Press). Underdome unpacks the political narratives behind architecture’s energy management strategies by drawing a new map of contending energy agendas. This publication reads architecture through the political ecology discourse, which identifies collective interests activated by access to and control over ecological resources.
Janette Kim is an architectural designer, researcher, and educator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Janette is assistant professor of architecture and co-director of the Urban Works Agency at California College of the Arts, founding principal of the design practice All of the Above, and founding editor of ARPA Journal, a digital publication on applied research practices in architecture.