The Underdome Guide to Energy Reform

The Underdome Guide to Energy Reform is the first book to map the political implications of energy management in architecture. It reenvisions collective priorities in the face of climate change, at scales ranging from the microelectronic to macroregional.
Organized into sections covering power, territory, lifestyle, and risk, Underdome catalogs conflicts and affiliations among energy agendas to inform public action and function as a ＂voter guide.＂ Original illustrations reconsider architecture’s symbolic and infrastructural connections to energy politics. Probing essays by urban designer Georgeen Theodore and architectural historians Reinhold Martin, Jonathan Massey, and Michael Osman explore new histories and forms of practice. Transcripts from the Underdome Sessions held at Columbia University Studio-X NYC -- which brought together panels of experts in design, policy, economics, and history to attack the climate crisis from multiple angles-- create a larger dialogue.

Underdome is a call to action, urging citizens and designers to questions how political ecology can reshape architectural objects and objectives.

Janette Kim was adjunct assistant professor at the Columbia University GSAPP from 2005-2015, where she codirected the Urban Landscape Lab and the Applied Research Practices in Architecture (ARPA) initiative. Kim is currently assistant professor at Syracuse University, principal of research and design practice All of the Above, and editor and founder of ARPA Journal.

Erik Carver is an architectural historian in the doctoral program at the Columbia University GSAPP, focusing on conjunctions of architecture, politics, and technology in the twentieth century. Carver’s work has been published in Architect, Volume, and Journal of Architecture Education.