This summer we have been eyewitnesses to record breaking patterns of prairie drought, extreme heat, and shrinking rivers – the inescapable smoke is a daily reminder of present danger. Things get complicated when we add micro-plastics in the northern oceans, glacial collapse, ocean current subversion, and sea level rise to the stress factors. We watch the slow-collapse our unwinding planet, seemingly non-responsive to its own plight, no longer capable of healing itself.

With the recent release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 8th Report we have a much more coherent climate analysis before us. The IPCC has prepared a road map to help us navigate the environmental crisis. As environmental damage accumulates it increasingly becomes our obligation as architects to demonstrate ways of reducing our impact and building differently.

This studio will concentrate on the hydrological change models of prominent glaciers – our ‘reservoirs in the sky’. As our global ice trust is depleted evermore rapidly – in some cases explosively – the old concepts of control and domination by mass interventions seem inadequate. Technical reinforcements are not enough to stem the evermore dynamic retreat and decline towards eminent disappearance. On the other hand, ignoring such an evident demise with its potential catastrophic outcomes also not a viable alternative.

On the Great Plains we are familiar with the vast distances between the high-altitude snowpack melt and the eventual flow into the ocean at sea level. Our region sustains several vivid examples. The Bow River winds through the Diefenbaker Dam junction into Qu’ Appelle and the Assiniboine (our Assiniboine), the Red River and northward to Lake Winnipeg, the Nelson River, and its eventual exit into the Hudson’s Bay. The Milk River originates at a matching great-divide height in southwest Montana, winds into Alberta, then doubles back across the Medicine Line to join the 3,767 km long Missouri River below the Fort Peck Dam. From here the water finds its way west and south to St. Louis, where it flows into the Mississippi River and through New Orleans into the Gulf of Mexico.

These magnificent transcontinental examples are difficult to fully comprehend because of their scale. Iceland allows us to explore the whole cycle, from the uppermost reaches of the broad temperate glacier Vatnajökull across one of the largest Sandhurs in the world to the open ocean in a few days, in less than 100 kms. Or from Eyjafjallajökull, an ice cap formed over top of the caldera of a volcano, we can reach the black sand beaches looking out to the Westman Islands in one day.

We are living in an era of environmental connectivity. A whole systems comprehensive design approach is required. How do we let go of orthodox technologies, and build intertwined and complicit interventions using adaptive techniques to redirect flows, harness energy, and respond to seasonal flux? Can we stabilize the exiting melt waters, assure access, and intercede in ways that preserve runoff benefits before the braided rivers enter the oceans to be born again? How can we build an equilibrium of design and construction, and find a balanced coherence in the face of this crescendo of climatic chaos?

In the second term we will examine how these scenarios might affect urban living – at sea level.